Desert Fox
by Vathara
Summary: A midnight rescue draws gargoyles to the Valley of the Gods.
1. Sonora

****

Desert Fox

A/N: Airwolf belongs to Bellisario and Universal, Gargoyles to Disney and Buena Vista, Sentinel concepts to UPN and Pet Fly. Airwolf is AU (moved ahead about twenty years). This story ties into "Nothing Could Possibly Go Wrong", a multiple crossover, so just to be safe... Godzilla: The Series belongs to Toho and Tristar, the Real Ghostbusters belong to DIC, and Seven Days belongs to Paramount. This story occurs before, during, and after "Nothing Could Possibly Go Wrong". Forgive any lapses in regards to Mexican border patrol officers. (And the snake is fine.) 

Rated R for language, violence, some adult themes, f/f implied.

~*~*~*~*~

"-Officer needs assistance!" Isabel Delcarlo ducked as more rounds struck her shattered jeep's hood, throwing sparks into the high desert night. Gasped, as her incautious move threw weight onto her shattered wrist. Funny, how broken bones could hurt more than the finger-sized hole seeping life from her chest.

Her radio hissed with static, then mocking laughter. "Forget it, Apoyo. Not even your demon can save you this time."

Miguel. With the cocaine smugglers. And he knew her real name. The dark-haired woman hissed. _So it's going to be here. Funny. Always thought I'd die on the rez.... _"Sorry I got you into this, _amiga_."

"Don't talk." Zorra pressed down on Isabel's chest with one hand, talons of the other slicing tape from the first-aid kit to seal the hole in her lung. Fox-red wings were folded around them both, warmth against the freezing night. Her red-black mane hung chill and lank with sweat, matted over her left brow ridge with blood.

__

My fault, Isabel knew. If Zorra hadn't been shadowing her, still cautious about the undercover DEA agent's new partner; if she hadn't risked it all in one swift swoop to pull Isabel clear before the rocket struck home.... "_Mi amor-_"

"We are _not_ going to die here! Do you hear me, Isabel?" Lips pulled back in a snarl of foxy muzzle; red-glowing eyes searched the night, seeking for anything they might have overlooked. Seeing only the flash of bullets. "Lady of mercy, mirror of justice, helper of all in danger...."

A chill wind blew the reek of death over them. Isabel tried not to think of the bodies scattered about them; some shot, some gutted like a puma's kill. Argentino had meant to take them alive, once he knew his rocket had failed. Five thugs later, he'd decided to fall back. "You... don't believe...."

"In the Morning Star? I'm gargoyle, _mi_ _amor._ Not a fool. Stay still." She pried the radio from her partner's bloody grip, clicked it on once more. "Mexican Border Patrol Unit 409, can anyone hear me-"

A click; a new snicker. Carlos Argentino. "Give it up, demon. No one is coming."

Static crackled over the airwaves. Bleak acceptance seeped into Zorra's crimson gaze. "We're jammed." 

Isabel coughed. Tasted iron. "Unless one of yours is flying within five miles?..."

A shake of a foxy head. Ruby eyes narrowed at the night, but her voice stayed level. "The elders still think if we leave the Argentinos be, they won't come looking for us."

__

Nice try, my friend. "They're coming." 

__

"Sí." Stark fact. Enough to tell her Zorra saw numbers that would take even a gargoyle down. 

__

And we're out of ammo. Zorra would have used her gun, ignoring the elders' decree. She'd ignored enough of the others. "Go!"

A vixen's sad smile. "They're not going to leave witnesses, Isa. And I wouldn't be able to move the clan before dawn."

True. Too true. Chairo and Urraca wouldn't be moved, and the clan wouldn't defy their leaders to flee to safety. Almost better to die here. Not even Chairo could ignore the danger then. "I'm sorry."

"You are worth it, my friend." A leathery finger traced gently down her cheek. "You have always been worth it."

"I was... so happy with you...."_ It couldn't last - I should've known it couldn't last-_

"Shhh." Talons pressed the radio on. "Come and die, traitor," Zorra said evenly. "My claws wait for you."

Isabel tried to smile. At least she had that much. Her killer would not walk free, after bribing his way out of a Mexican jail. No; as her blood joined the bitter sands, so would Argentino's, and Miguel Quintano's, late of the Mexican Border Patrol....

Something caught the edge of her hearing. Just a whisper on the wind. Like a breeze through high-tension wires; a subtle, metallic heartbeat in the night. 

Her radio sputtered. "Unit 409." An unfamiliar voice. The Spanish was accented; tones of the southern countries, and... America? "That you by the wrecked jeep?"

Astonishment on two faces; human and gargoyle. Not hope; but it burned, beating back the dark. _"Sí!" _Zorra said fiercely. "Where are you?"

__

Close, Isabel thought, trying to hold on as darkness stole her vision. American, and apparently not with Argentino - God, it _couldn't_ be help. _They've got to be close - they'd never hear us if they weren't_-

"Any other friendlies here?"

"Aside from you? If you _are_ friendly," the gargoyle snapped. "My friend, she is dying-"

"Hang on, 409-"

Thunder ripped through the night.

~*~*~*~*~

"_Santa Maria_, what a mess!" Dominic Santini studied the composite image from the engineer's seat, IR overlaying starlight to ID which bodies were still alive. "Got 'em."

Stringfellow Hawke leaned the collective right, swinging Airwolf between the Border Patrol and the heaviest gunfire as he fired another burst from the cannons. Beside him Caitlin O'Shannessy worked magic with her console, cloaking them from Mexican radar. "Getting low," the redhead warned.

Not just on ammo, String knew. He could see the Lady's fuel gauge in his head; needle hovering in that ominous space between an eighth of a tank and fumes. He could have known it down to the last cubic centimeter - Airwolf could have given him the data easily enough - but the link was still too new to deal with when they were in the middle of a firefight.

They'd been on their way back from one of Michael's Central American jobs, a nasty little triple-cross that had involved Columbian sapphires, Columbian cocaine, and enough dead Columbians to start a small war. Flitting over the high desert of Sonora had seemed like a good idea. Anything to get back into U.S. airspace when they finally had to touch down. 

Instead they'd stumbled into someone else's private war. 

__

No one shoots a cop when we can stop it. "Ready?"

A rush of wind was his answer; gunfire suddenly louder as Caitlin opened the left-hand door. _"Come on!"_ he heard her shout in Spanish, pitching her voice to cut through Airwolf's howl. For all the drilling she'd done with him and Marella, she still sounded like Texas. "_We'll get you out -_ whoa!"

String heard Dom's finger rap against a monitor, as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing. "String, what the hell is _that?_"

__

That had claws and fangs, a fox-like head that loomed over Caitlin with red-glowing eyes straight out of nightmares. Fox-red bat-wings were wrapped around a bloodied woman, cradling blue lips against her chest. _"Help her!"_

The voice on the radio. And through the zings of lead rebounding off Airwolf's hull, he could hear the wheeze of a deflated lung. String traded a glance with his crew. _Not really a choice here. "Get in!"_

Carbide creaked as talons gripped it; the creature all but fell into the back. Caitlin jumped in after, pulling the door closed just in time to send more bullets spanging off. "Guess they don't want us to leave the party," the redhead quipped as String fired back. _Rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-_

__

Cannon ammo below minimum parms, flashed into three minds; Airwolf's worry overriding her usual firefight silence. _3%, 2%, 0.5-_

Oh, hell._ "Hang on!" _String bit out.

Airwolf leapt off the ground, rocketing past a hundred feet before he turned toward the border. "Dom, call up New Mexico and Arizona. Find us the nearest trauma hospital." The bandage he'd glimpsed should buy her some time. No way to know if it'd be enough.

"Gotcha - String! Rocket-" 

String banked left and hit the turbos; the concussion still rocked them. _Enough is enough_. "Dom! Hellfire."

The missile light blinked on. "Got it!"

Stooping on his prey, String fired. 

~*~*~*~*~

Fire bloomed outside dark windows; Zorra winced, turning away. _A missile?_ She'd seen them sometimes, when the Mexican Army did night maneuvers. But never from a helicopter. And never had she heard a helicopter - or rather, _not_ heard a helicopter - so close. _Who are these people?_ "Isabel," she whispered, chafing her friend's cheek. Not much room to move here, with all these lights and buttons; no matter, so long as she could hold the battered body close. "Isa, stay with me."

"Mmph..." Warm breath against her talons. But so little, so very little. 

Sticky chill clung to her hip. Zorra glanced down, held back a shudder at the dark streaks spattering her camouflage shift. _This one's for the washrags_, she thought bleakly. _You'll never get the stain out_....

"Tucson General's got a helipad," the man beside her said gruffly in _inglés_. Dom, the pilot had called him; tones clan used with clan. Brows had only faint threads of gray in the black, but the wrinkles around clear brown eyes spoke of a weight of years. "She oughta be bringing up the coordinates right... now."

"That is hundreds of miles from here!" Zorra burst out. "She has no time-"

A muted roar; a massive hand seemed to push her against the cabin wall. "We'll be there in fifteen," the pilot said calmly. "Want to tell us what was going on down there?" 

Fifteen minutes, the gargoyle thought, stunned. Catching a glimpse of red numbers climbing on a display by the man's right hand; String, had Dom called him? Fifteen minutes to travel hundreds of miles.... "Who _are_ you?"

"Sorry."

He didn't sound sorry. 

"Let me see." The woman who'd ventured out after them; a drift of freckles around her eyes, red-gold eyebrows framing a kind gaze. Fear was there too; the fear Zorra hated to see, fear that had led so often to human hate, human betrayal....

__

Be fair, Zorra thought, cradling a damaged heart close. _You're blooded from head to toe. Even Isabel would think twice meeting you like this_.

But this human did not let fear rule her. Black gloves held steady on what must be another first-aid kit; though the red cross was dark and subtle against gray metal. She listened to the rasp of breath, glanced back at String. "Can we get any more oxygen in here?"

Zorra felt force shift, pressing her tighter to the deck. Her ears popped; the atmosphere suddenly seemed thicker. She sniffed, registering the oddness of the air. Clear, tasteless; only the hint of oil, electronics, and human sweat.

Not an ordinary helicopter. Not ordinary at all. 

"How long since she got hit?"

"It is..." Zorra pushed aside Isabel's turquoise bracelet, checked her watch. "Since the rocket - eight minutes, I think?" Dark eyes flicked over the little bits of face visible through black helmets. "You are _norteaméricanos?_"

No answer. Which was, perhaps, answer enough. "I thank you. Argentino would have...." She shook back her mane. Best not to think of it. Best only to think of Isabel here, alive; hanging on, if only for the moment.

"Argentino?" The woman whistled, dabbing at the cut left by flying shrapnel. "You _are_ in trouble." 

Dom raised a dark brow. "Want to fill us in, Red?"

"Family of cocaine smugglers," Red stated, washing out the wound. "Heard about 'em back when... you know. Nasty ones."

The elder snorted. "You run into a nice one, let me know." Polite, for a human. He wasn't staring. But his gaze kept straying back to her.

Zorra sighed. "My name is Zorra. You call my kind _gargoyles_." A taloned hand spread; she winced at the blood visible even in this low light. "We are few." 

"Never heard of... will you look at that."

"What-" Words died in her throat as she saw glowing letters scroll across a screen. _A computer? In a helicopter?_

__

Maintaining O2 levels 15% above normal, flashed up._ Accessing files, keyword: gargoyles.   
1)Rainwater spouts common to Gothic architecture.   
2) Misused synonym for grotesques.   
3) Rare sentient species known to inhabit Guatemala, United Kingdom, and Japan. Possibly present in Albania, Siberia, and East Germany.   
See physiology, gargoyle, speculative; psychology, gargoyle, speculative; Firm encounters of, gargoyle.   
Internal sensors and camera views of unregistered passenger, Zorra, match species description.   
Subspecies match uncertain. Physiology file indicates appearance highly variable.   
Closest match: Guatemalan subspecies. _

Now it was Zorra's turn to stare. _The elders say we came from the south, centuries ago_....

__

Sensors indicate physical trauma to unregistered passenger, Isabel, words scrolled onward. _Physiological monitor available?_

"Don't think we can get her in a flight suit." String kept his gaze fixed on the night. "How bad do they want you?"

Zorra weighed the pilot's question carefully, trying not to show fangs as water stung her cut. "Why?" 

"Argentino's got people in the States," Red said bluntly. "We drop her on Tucson General, he'll know inside three hours." She turned toward the front. "Call him?" 

"Yeah." 

"He ain't going to like this," Dom said warningly. 

She could hear the slight smile in String's voice. "What else is new?"

~*~*~*~*~

"Let me go." A growl behind him, low and deadly. "Let me go _with_ her." 

"Oh? You want her to bleed out through that lung 'cause nobody'll go near her? Then you go right on out there." Dominic kept a good grip on the red-furred arm. "You want her to get help, you stay in here."

String ignored the scuffle in the back, holding Airwolf on the roof as Caitlin dodged out from under curious paramedics. _We want to stay right here. Just a little longer_.... 

__

Noted, Airwolf murmured in his mind. _Fuel/ammo re-supply imminent?_

__

Should be waiting at the hangar. So long as Airwolf had picked the right keyword from the array Michael had left available to her link. Nice trick, that; accessing Michael's own computers to send the needed orders, without waiting for Archangel himself to sign off on it. 

The Firm's Deputy Director would get them for that. Later. 

__

Psychic scan indicates pilot Michael, Archangel still in REM sleep. 

Good. Marella would kill them if they woke her boss up for anything less than an emergency. Which this wasn't. Yet. 

A thump of hatch, and Caitlin was buckling in beside him. String lifted off in one smooth motion, veering left just before Airwolf's downdraft would have swamped an incoming LifeFlight. "They've got her," the redhead reported. 

Zorra twisted free of Dom's grip, sank back against the hull. "Please." Raw anguish vibrated in her voice. "Let me go to her." 

"We will," Caitlin promised. Her gaze slid back to Dom.

"Oh?" Dominic caught the fierce compassion in Cait's face. "Oh yeah. Sure we will." 

"Have to set down first," String said bluntly. "I were you, I'd want to wash those scum off before I went to her." 

Caitlin glanced at him, eyes wide; whipped around to stare at Zorra, apparently only now realizing there was far too much blood to have come from Isabel alone. 

Fox lips wrinkled in a rueful smile. _"Sí."_

~*~*~*~*~

__

Information request: gargoyles?

Caught halfway through brushing his teeth, Firm Deputy Director Michael Coldsmith-Briggs III, code-named Archangel, spat out a mouthful of foam. "Dammit, Lady...." 

__

Mission successful, Airwolf informed him. Her voice was warm and fluffy as nestling down, soft as kitten fur. You'd never guess she was a practiced killer. _Critical information retrieved and/or destroyed_. _Hawke judges agent Delgado's cover still intact. Pilots and Airwolf in good condition, Tucson vicinity._

Despite himself, Archangel felt taut nerves unwind. His hunters were safe, if not yet home. "Tucson?" What on earth were they doing in Tucson?

__

Tap of Tucson General Hospital computer systems indicates unregistered passenger Isabel in guarded but stable condition.

Unregistered passenger? Oh no. 

__

Requesting secure evac for unregistered passenger Isabel. May have important information regarding Argentino drug smuggling cartel. Assassination already attempted once, Sonoran High Desert. 

Assassination? "What. Happened." 

__

Distress call received, Mexican Border Patrol Unit 409. Radio jamming and/or bribery prevented other units from responding. Dust-off made under hostile fire conditions; fire returned....

Images poured in, data cool and clear as mountain snowmelt; the swift exhilaration of night flight, the tickle of the intercepted transmission, the sudden sharpness of Combat Mode. He could _feel_ the clear knowledge of the enemy's position from GPS and starlock; he could have fired the Hellfire blindfolded- 

__

Initial evac successful.

Michael gripped the edge of cool porcelain, listening to the slow drum of his pulse. Achingly slow, after the thousands of RPM Airwolf counted as normal.... _No. Human. Seventy beats per minute _is_ normal,_ _damn it._

He resisted the urge to pound his head against a handy wall. It never failed. Send Hawke out to do a simple pickup, and he'd find the only innocent person in trouble in three hundred miles. "Why me?" 

__

Pilot Michael, Archangel was available when secondary pilot necessary, Airwolf reminded him.

"Oh, thank you _ever_ so much."

"Talking to yourself again?" Marella asked as he stalked out to the foyer. 

"I only wish-" Straightening his white tie with one last tug, he caught the amused glint in her dark gaze. "You knew." 

"They called me first." His second in command swallowed one last crumb of omelet, ducking into the kitchen to put her plate in the dishwasher. "After they'd used your code to get their re-supply set up." 

Plucking up his cane, Michael growled something incoherent. Never mind that he'd left them certain codes specifically for that purpose, in case for some unforeseen reason he wasn't available. It was the principle of the thing. _Computers don't belong inside people's minds_. 

A sense of hurt, pulling away. _Information request: gargoyles?_

Damn. It was like yelling at a kid. "Why do you want to know about gargoyles?" He'd heard a few rumors about New York, lately, but Airwolf hadn't been near New York-

__

Unregistered passenger Zorra matches species description. 

"She'll wake Hawke out of a sound sleep, but they've been trying to get her not to call you until you're up-" Walking back into the foyer, Marella frowned. "What's wrong?" 

Michael held up a halting hand. _You picked up a_ gargoyle _last night? _

__

Gargoyle Zorra was assisting agent Isabel, Airwolf replied matter-of-factly._ Firm files and pilot extrapolation indicates security risk minimal. Released on own recognizance. _

Not that Airwolf's crew could have stopped a gargoyle without resorting to violence. He remembered a chill alley in East Germany, a snarl of Russian as he tried to pin a mass of raw muscle, talons and wings. Some bones still ached when the weather shifted. 

But for the most part gargoyles didn't talk - at least, not to those who weren't clan. "You have a flight out to Tucson?" 

Marella nodded. "I'm leaving in five minutes." 

He'd expected no less. "There a few things you need to know...."

~*~*~*~*~

"Ms. Apoyo?" 

Marella Duval watched dark hair rustle over the hospital pillowcase and tried not to sigh. Expecting Airwolf's crew to fly past someone in trouble would be like expecting the sun to set in the east. And since sometimes the person in trouble had been her, or Archangel... she did appreciate that tendency. She did. 

But debriefing a slow stream of civilians about a supposedly-secret helicopter could be a real headache. 

__

At least this one should understand secrets, Marella thought. _Undercover DEA...and she knows a living statue?_

Gargoyles. Creatures that to all outward appearance became stone with dawn's first light, to break free and soar again at sunset. She'd never have believed the file if Archangel hadn't confirmed it. _East Germany_, was all he would say. That and, _be careful._

Hazel eyes blinked open. _"¿Qué pasa?"_

"You're in Second Mesa, Ms. Apoyo," Marella smiled reassuringly, squeezing gently on the hand that didn't bear an IV. Some thoughtful nurse had rescued Apoyo's bracelet of silver and turquoise inlay; it gleamed faintly in the overhead light. "Not quite home... but as close as we could get." As close as still had some facilities to deal with possible complications, should the Hopi woman's lung collapse again. Tucson General hadn't officially released her - but given the quality of Apoyo's enemies, the DEA had accepted the Firm's offer to spirit her off. 

They'd moved her as carefully as they could. Marella just hoped they'd been careful enough.

Features that had passed for Mexican went slack with astonishment. "The rez? But - we were in Sonora...."

The white-clad spy nodded. "What do you remember?" 

Hazel eyes narrowed. "Who are you?"

Marella handed over one of her many ID cards. This one showed her as a State Department agent; close enough for most purposes. "I work with the people who pulled you and your friend out." Dark eyes were level. "The ones who weren't there." 

That registered; Isabel gave her one slow nod. "That's the story?" 

"It has to be," Marella said frankly. "I'm going to ask you to tell me what you saw, what you heard, everything. And then I'm going to ask you to forget it ever happened." She smiled wryly. "In case you're wondering, Delcarlo was reported dead at the scene." 

A shudder rippled the sheets; Marella sympathized. After so long living your cover, to hear that person was 'dead' was jarring. "And... my friend?" 

"Zorra said she'd catch up with you later. And to - keep your hands where she can see them?" That was a code phrase if she'd ever heard one. Marella just hoped it was the gargoyle's code for _I'm okay_, not _kill the messenger_.

Isabel let out a soft sigh, sagging back against pillows in obvious relief. "Your people... we owe them our lives."

"Join the club." Marella pulled up a chair. "So. Let's start with why you were out there, that night...." 

~*~*~*~*~

__

One week later.

__

Still no word on Argentino, Isabel thought, leaning against a sun-warm pueblo wall, face deliberately turned away from the small gaggle of Mexican and European tourists here to see "real Indians". She didn't speak German, but she'd bet that annoying little blond boy was demanding to know where the scalps were. _As if we'd show you._

__

He probably doesn't know any better, Isabel reminded herself. After all, there were a fair amount of Europeans - and no few Americans - who thought her people were extinct. She'd wandered into a chat room once to get lambasted by someone across the Atlantic about how hypocritical Americans were about ethnic cleansing, given that there were still ethnic Albanians alive, "unlike the Native Americans you wiped out". 

__

Gee, she'd typed back,_ I could have sworn I was alive yesterday_.

The chat room silence had been deafening. 

Isabel tried not to laugh at the memory. It still hurt when she breathed too deep, but the doctors swore she'd recover fully. 

Recover breathing, at least. Her wrist - they were less certain. So many, many bones and ligaments to consider; so many chances to never qualify on the firing range again. 

She could shoot left-handed. Not well, but practice would help that.

But it wouldn't be enough. 

__

It's only been a week, Isabel told herself forcefully. _They'll know more in a few days._ _Be patient_. 

She just hated being sick.

__

Be honest. You hate waiting. 

It wasn't as if she had much choice in the matter. Her unknown benefactors might have effectively smashed part of the Sonoran drug trade, but they'd also left her assailants in so many small pieces the _federales_ were still tallying parts to figure out how many people had been out there. 

__

An American helicopter throwing missiles in Mexican airspace. Isabel shook her head. _No wonder no one wants to talk about it_.

Very, very small pieces. Some had been positively ID'd, but not Miguel and Carlos. 

They might have gotten away. The thought made sleeping one long nightmare.

It might not matter if they were dead. If Carlos Argentino had passed on her identity to anyone else in the family-

"Isabel!" 

The DEA agent groaned silently. One day out of her sickbed and already she knew why she'd left the reservation. "Beth." Her head hurt. Her chest hurt. Her wrist ached, every last bone sore and throbbing, and she did not want to deal with this. _Go away, leave me alone, it's almost sunset and I want to be _alone.

Well. Not alone, exactly. But certainly away from human eyes.

No such luck. Beth Maza gave her a warm smile, coming in at a fast walk. "Hey! Glad I caught you. I was talking to the university anthropology group; we were planning to see if we could get a Two-Spirit group organized out here-" 

"No." Blunt. But blunt was the only way to deal with Beth.

Apparently not blunt enough; it might as well have been a breeze through the Native American scholar's chic short haircut. "I mean, after all you went through, you've got to see we need something like this for the kids-"

"No." Elisa. Why couldn't it have been Elisa? _Because Elisa can't stand it out here any more than you can_, Isabel told herself frankly. _Too many people wanting to know too much, too many customs you can't follow, too many elders who think they have the right to order your life. _"Beth. Leave it alone. The elders aren't interested. And neither am I." 

Beth barely hesitated. "Trista Begay's in the hospital. They say it was an overdose." 

Isabel didn't flinch. "Navajo. Not my problem."

"Oh, that's rich," Beth muttered. "Since when did you care about tribe? She's _like you,_ Isabel, you've got to help-" 

"That's enough!" Isabel seized the younger woman with her good hand, glanced about for listening ears. Eighteen in easy earshot, if you didn't count the snoozing dogs. And around here, you didn't dare not count them. _Charlie Leaphorn_, the agent recognized one pair of retreating feet. _Damn_. If Third Mesa's worst gossip had heard, it'd be over the Hopi rez inside two days, which meant it'd only take another week or so to penetrate the wall of silence between Hopi and Navajo- "God, Beth. Do you even know what you're saying?" 

Stubbornness set into Beth's jaw. "She needs-" 

"She needs you to shut up!" Isabel whispered harshly, nose to nose with the startled student. She jerked her head toward the waiting desert. "Come on." 

~*~*~*~*~

__

So this is Isabel's home, Zorra thought, cracking free of the day's stone sleep on a rocky spire near the Hopi village. _Lady of Evening, it's so...shut together_. A few dogs barked, agitation passing from one end of the town to the other. People still wandered the streets, with the weary, purposeful air that presaged returning to home and hearth. The first stars glimmered in the red-streaked sky, and a pickup grumbled down a nearby dirt road. 

And not too far below, her friend was royally chewing someone out. 

"-Did you even _think_ that not everyone might know she's a lesbian? That she might not want everyone to know?" 

Zorra's ears pricked forward; she clambered carefully nearer. There was pain in her friend's voice; anguish that tore and twisted like barbed wire around a wing. 

"She's in the hospital," the darker woman said patiently, leaning against the rocks as Isabel paced. "How can she not expect people to know?" 

Isa growled, low and dangerous. "Because, Miss Oblivious, she hurts. And when you hurt, you don't think." Hazel eyes raked the stranger. "Though you don't even need that. Beth, did you even think about what's going to happen to your reputation? Being here, with me, alone?" 

Alarm flared in Beth's eyes. "I-" 

"Ah. _Now_ you think." Isabel snorted. "And you want to start a Two-Spirit group." 

"I care!" the younger woman flung at her. 

"Go ahead and care. Just don't get people _killed_ caring." Isabel leaned back against the spire, arms hugging herself against the chill night. 

"No one's going to get killed!" 

"Hah!" A bark of laughter, dark and bitter. "Go away, Beth. Just go away." 

Beth strode angrily away; stopped. Knelt to study the ground, letting pebbles run through her hands. "You shouldn't be out here alone. People have been - seeing things...." 

__

"Leave." 

Zorra waited until the woman was out of sight before gliding down. "She is right, you know." She wrapped her friend in warm wings, slipping a talon under the shirt collar to feel silky skin. "You could catch a chill." 

"Or a creature." Isabel smiled up at her, running bandaged fingers through the foxy mane. "Come on. The phone should be clear."

Zorra swooped into the narrow alley by the trading post, aware of Isabel's stealthy figure keeping watch. This pay phone wasn't safe - it could be seen from the street - but it was the most concealed in five miles. Feeding coins into the slot, she waited. _Call... please call...._

"Devil's Claw Greeting Cards," came a sing-song voice from the speaker. "When you want your message to _stick_." 

"Mariposa," Zorra sighed. She could imagine her clan sister's hot-pink Mohawk bobbing with laughter, silver jangling in her multiply-pierced ears. And for all that, Mariposa still looked sweet and innocent as a dew-spotted rose. "You made it?" 

"We all did! 'Lawn sculptures' - by the Dragon, Zorra, your mate's brilliant!" There; a soft clash of silver on silver. Mariposa must be playing with her anklets again. She had a way of coiling one up in her tail, then spinning it loose to crash into the others that could entertain hatchlings for hours.

"We're not official...." 

Mariposa _tch_ed. "Because Chairo and Urraca say so? They can keep it- oh. _Sí_. Zorra? Tizne." 

A click as the phone was handed over. "The elders agreed," her ebony clan brother said with no small amount of satisfaction. Getting the elders to agree on anything was almost as hard as helping their sister Callista call a storm. Which Zorra had done, once... and never, ever planned to try again. "We're too large to hide in El Timoteo anymore. Even if the rez isn't a good place, somewhere near ought to need us. If it looks good up there, we're splitting. And you are not going back, _sí?_"

"Maybe to visit." A hard thing, to leave the land of her hatching behind. But she'd watched her clan with the villagers of El Timoteo for over fifty years now, and though their friendship stood strong as ever, there were just too many of each kind for the land to support. Splitting the clan now, before there was a real problem, would keep El Timoteo safe. "So you'll be here?" 

"Callista's calling a mist." A pause. "It just turned purple, but it feels like a mist... She said it should hide us until dawn. With luck, we'll get there the night after tomorrow." 

"Callista's _with_ you?" That was unexpected. For the elders to let the clan's one true mage come on such a risky voyage... Zorra shook her head. 

"Get rid of all the troublemakers in one swoop, eh?" Tizne sighed. "She says it will be easier to cast when we're coming from the clan to her, than if she has to cloak those leaving the clan from Mexico. And you know the new Father, he doesn't like it when she teaches the young humans cantrips."

"Hmph." Human priests always did have trouble with spells, even the pared-down cantrips that barely raised a flicker of true power. What was the more wrong, to spend scarce cash on fertilizers - or to invoke just enough magic to _feel_ what the land needed for a healthy crop? "Well. When she comes out of the trance, tell her I look forward to pulling her tail." 

Tizne snickered. "You would." 

Isabel was waiting, a soft smile on her lips. "Good news?" 

"Good news," Zorra affirmed, matching her stride as they slipped into the shadows. "As long as you're willing to support three more hungry mouths until we can get settled." 

Isabel waved it off. "Hazard pay. I can afford it." Hazel eyes gleamed. "Want to try my cornbread?" 

Zorra arched a brow. "I hope it's better than your _quesadillas_." 

"Oh, much...."

~*~*~*~*~

__

A day later. 

Left leg propped against his office desk at Knightsbridge, Michael rubbed a finger along his moustache. "You're kidding." 

"I wish." Marella tapped a pen against the brief report; with any luck, their last business for the day. "If we hadn't put a flag on her alias, this would've gotten lost in the shuffle for good." 

Archangel skimmed the printout one more time. _Classified information lost in transit on blind courier. _Meaning someone who didn't know they were carrying espionage data had gone missing. "Sometimes I think Dominic has a point. We do have too many agencies out there."

"Her cover was supposed to hold up against a thorough background check." Marella spread empty hands. 

"So the cartel finds out who she is, and the CIA doesn't?" He waved off explanations. "I know, I know. The cartels can pay more." 

"We can send an agent to pick it up." 

"Giving someone else the chance to find out 'Delcarlo' is still alive? And, not coincidentally, plastering egg all over the Company's face? No. Much as I'd like to." The swift smile vanished. "And it can't be you; not with that mess in the Middle East brewing." 

"Which mess?" Marella asked, one dark brow raised. "Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan...." 

"Take your pick. Never thought I'd say this, but those people need to get a _life_."

"A lot of trouble over there," Marella said quietly. "We started some of it." 

"_Some_ of it," Michael allowed. "We weren't the ones who split up India and Pakistan. Much less started the whole mess in Palestine." With his water glass, he saluted the map of Europe on the wall. "Thank you, Britannia." 

Glass set down, he studied the printout. "No. If we're going to pull this rabbit out of a hat, it'll have to show up on my desk, no strings attached." Michael winced as if he'd bitten a lemon. "Or someone's desk, at least." 

Marella glanced up. "Locke?" 

"He's decent. For a Company man." A white-clad shrug. "If we pass him the name and location, it shouldn't go much farther." 

"But you don't want to." 

The hazards of having a subordinate who knew you too well. "We told her we covered her trail. Our word's on the line." Not that it would mean much, if it came down to Apoyo versus the country's needs. 

But as long as it wasn't, he'd hold that frail scrap of honor close. 

__

Too much time around Hawke, Michael told himself. _Idealism will only get you killed_. 

But it was idealism that held Airwolf's crew together; kept them under his command, if only loosely. Ideals that had entwined him with them, the staunch belief that they actually could make a difference - if only a small one. 

__

One life at a time.

Marella turned a page. "You might want to ask Hawke where Le Van is."

Michael raised an eyebrow. 

"A little bird told me Locke might be out of town for a few days," Marella said serenely. "And if he's not available - and after that mess in Cascade, we do have reason to doubt some members of the Company...." 

Archangel smiled. "Then I suppose we have to do it ourselves." 

~*~*~*~*~

"Mom! Dad!" Gravel scattered as Beth Maza rushed into her parents' arms, exuberant as ever. "And you brought them! This is great...."

Scratching Bronx' blue ears, Hudson gazed up as the rest of the clan flocked around the Mazas. New York's sky was not that different from Scotland's, but this dry land of Arizona held a host of stars he'd never seen. 

He drew a deep breath, tasting dust and stone. The Trio might have cavorted through the sky on their way to meet the Mazas on the desert's edge; he'd caught every thermal he could find, conserving his strength. Thin air wasn't kind to old lungs after the long plane ride. But ah, the stars were wondrous. 

And it was _quiet_. He'd nigh forgotten what it was to not hear engines. _A bit of water, and this place would be a fine one for a clan_. 

Perhaps it was already. If Beth's rumors held truth....

"What do you think, old friend?" 

Shoving Bronx' muzzle out of the way, Hudson regarded the small pile of fragments in Goliath's cupped hand. Took an especially promising piece, tilting it to view every angle. Wet a brown finger, brushing it across the crumbly surface, to taste the essence of the stone. 

The cold grit of granite, in a world of basalt and sandstone. Hudson smiled. "Good eyes, lass." 

"There _are_ gargoyles?" Diane looked hopeful. 

__

Still not sure our leader's the right mate for your daughter, eh? Hudson thought. _That'd be two of us, lass_. 

"One, at least," Goliath confirmed with a confident smile. The clan leader caped dark purple wings, standing tall to gaze into the desert night. "It is a good sign." 

"All _right!_" Lex slapped palms with Brooklyn, yellow hand almost engulfed in brick-red. "Let's go!" 

"Bide a moment, lads." Hudson hid a smile. Ah, to be young, full confident that all would be well. "These old bones are a bit weary t' be chasing shards before dawn." 

"We can go," Broadway started.

"Not this night," Goliath told the hefty aqua gargoyle. "Your land is wide and unexplored," the clan leader said gravely to the Mazas. "It would be wiser of us to spend what remains of the night looking at your... maps." 

Another of this new world's ideas, Hudson thought; laying out the nooks and crannies of the land as only an eagle might see it. Unthought-of, in the Scotland he'd been hatched in. But effective, no doubt of it. 

"Not really our land, anymore." Peter Maza ran fingers through short gray hair, brushing away old memories. "Well. Let's get settled in." 

~*~*~*~*~

Tie askew, graying blond hair slightly less than perfectly combed, and white suit unpressed, Archangel glared at the nearest hapless intelligence analyst. "What do you mean, we _lost_ New York?" 

Fritz Palmer swallowed. The man's own tie had unraveled long ago, lying in limp tiger-stripes over his blue collar, as he and the rest of the Firm's graveyard shift played catch-up with the unfolding crisis. Working for the Firm was no picnic, and everyone knew the Deputy Director put in more hours than the most wired hacker down in Data Warfare. Once Archangel turned in for the night, no one at Knightsbridge wanted to wake him for anything short of World War III. "Coffee, sir?" 

Michael moderated his glare. Terrified agents didn't work well. And given that no few of those who'd tried to play office politics with Archangel had ended up scattered in small pieces over various unfriendly territories, he had enough of a reputation already. "Black. _Talk_."

Palmer brought up satellite views; images which showed a nasty silver swirl where the City That Never Sleeps should have been. "Preliminary reports from New Jersey seem to indicate it was a massive psychokinetic pulse-" 

"I know." Michael could feel it in his veins, in the prickle of hairs on the back of his neck; in the shivery panic that had yanked him from the depths of sleep, as Airwolf yelped to any mind that would hear her. 

Shielding protocols swept out in the next instant, a sun-on-snow projection that still cast sparkles at the edge of his vision. He sensed the others hunkering down under it, nestling into the safety of Hawke's cabin. Going back to sleep, the lucky bastards. 

They'd come if he needed them. He knew that, certain as sunrise. 

But until he needed them, Airwolf's crew looked after Airwolf first. 

__

Anyone landing on Eagle Lake tonight is going to be in for a nasty surprise.... 

Palmer was staring at him, dark eyes wide. "You... know, sir?" 

Damn. As if there weren't enough rumors flying around. "Go on." 

"Ah...right." The analyst punched another key. "Satellite cover and Dr. Chapman's message indicate that the point of origin was Solstice Technologies." 

Cameron Winter's company. Trouble in a multi-billion-dollar sized package; though usually Winter was thumbing his nose at a certain eighteen-story lizard. _Dangerous habit_, Archangel thought coolly. Only Winter's contracts with the Pentagon had kept him out of the SDECE's grasp. The French Secret Service was _not_ happy with the man. 

__

If they go after him this time, I'm not putting an agent in the way. No matter what the Committee wants.

"The mist swept over the city in less than a minute, and there's been no communications from inside it since. Based on the electromagnetic readings, we don't think anything's getting in from outside, either." Palmer swallowed. "If there is an inside." 

"Don't give up on them yet, Palmer. New York's pulled through worse." Archangel looked at his watch. _And three, two, one_.... 

"Sir?" Samala held up the phone; another of his white-clad angels, filling in while Marella caught her own eight hours. "Washington's on the line."

"The perfect start to a wonderful night." Cane bracing him, Archangel stood. "Get the jet ready." 

~*~*~*~*~

"Really, the maps aren't going to help much where you're going," Beth chattered on as they slipped into her parents' rented house trailer, the tail end of a long spiel on the dangers of Arizona's desert. What landmarks were most visible, what to do if they lost their way, what water not to drink at any cost. Four aluminum walls made a tight fit for the clan, but it had lights and heat. And with luck, it was far enough away from other houses that there'd be none to ask questions. "Even the Navajos don't usually go into the Valley of the Gods. It's _cold _up there. They say there's snow even in the summertime."

"Cold does not bother us." Goliath studied the map's brown and red terrain, noting its lack of details. 

__

Say that again when ye've passed a hundred, lad, Hudson thought wryly. He was just as happy not to be out on nights you could see your own breath. 

"But you found the shards near town?" Broadway asked, planting a talon on an image of a rocky spire. 

"Right there," Beth confirmed. "It's... a little complicated." 

"Start at the beginning," her mother advised, coming out of the small kitchen with a tray full of steaming mugs. "You, too," she told her husband pointedly. 

Peter sipped his milk-laced coffee, drew a deep breath. "There have been stories about the valley for a long time," the former cop admitted. "Mostly the witchcraft kind. That it's not a good place for ordinary people to go. Even singers don't like to go that way without a damn good reason." 

"Singers?" Goliath raised a brow ridge. 

"Navajo healers," Diane explained, falling into her role as a professor. "Something like your Magus. Though I never heard of them turning anyone to stone."

"But about four years ago, the stories started changing," Beth picked up the thread, leaning over the map. "Every once in a while, people hear sounds out that way. Like wind, only they swear it's not the wind. Like a wolf... but there haven't been wolves around here in almost a century." She unfolded a sheaf of notes; names, places, what people had been doing when they heard it. "And sometimes - just sometimes - people see something dark in the night sky. Something that's not like anything they've ever seen."

"They even have a name for it." Peter stared into the depths of his mug. "_ La loba aérea._"

"The wolf of the air," Diane translated for the clan. 

"Spooky," Broadway muttered, munching popcorn. 

"It's not spooky," Lex insisted, tail tapping against the floor. "It's a _gargoyle_."

"Man, I hope so," Brooklyn murmured. 

Hudson watched them out of the corner of his eye, hoping himself. Goliath might be blind to it, but Hudson had seen more mates pair off than Goliath's daughter had years. And it'd grown more and more clear to the clan's surviving elder that Angela's favor lay... outside the clan. 

Not the Trio's fault. Hatched and raised by humans on Avalon, Angela was neither part of the world they'd left in Scotland, nor truly of the world they'd woken to in New York. And aye, she was gargoyle, and aye, she'd likely take a gargoyle to mate when she chose to bear egg. 

But love him? That, Hudson doubted. 

"Well." Picking up the phone, Diane started dialing. "Let's see if New York survived without you guys for one night."

"Maza," came the crisp, no-nonsense reply. 

"Elisa!" Diane brightened. "We just got settled in. Did you want to talk to your friends?"

"Matt!" the detective hissed. "It's my mom!"

Hudson cocked an ear, noting the near-panic in that familiar voice. Even after so many years with the clan, Elisa still underestimated gargoyle hearing. 

"Diane?" Angela sounded more puzzled than anything else. "Elisa, what's wrong?"

"She's putting your father on the phone, that's what's wrong!"

Matt's voice was faded, farther away; Hudson caught something about "complicated".

"What am I going to tell them?" Elisa moaned.

"Relax, partner," Matt assured her. "You'll think of something."

"Elisa," Goliath rumbled as the rest of the clan gathered round the phone. 

"Goliath." The detective swallowed. "Hi."

"Hi!" Lex was ecstatic. "The flight was so cool!"

"Anything interesting happen while we were gone?" Brooklyn asked.

"Ahhh...."

Hudson frowned. Something _was_ wrong. Something Elisa didn't want them to know about. 

Goliath had caught it as well; his eyes glowed faintly. "Elisa?" 

A resigned breath. "Demona threw a spell while you guys were over the Midwest-" 

"Demona?" The Mazas paled at his growl. They knew well enough the grudge Goliath's former mate carried against their daughter, though Hudson doubted Elisa had told them how many times the immortal gargess had nigh slain her. 

"We're okay," Elisa said clearly. "We got her spellbook, and we stopped it. But you guys ought to stay out there. At least for the week. Part of Manhattan's a real mess." 

Goliath rumbled, low and dangerous. "Elisa, if you are in danger-"

"We're not. Really, we're fine. We've... got to get down to the precinct," Elisa finished. "I'll... call you guys back. Tomorrow night." _Click_. 

"That psycho!" Brooklyn's beak showed fangs; the clan's second in command looked as if he'd shred someone into shark bait, if he could but find a suitable target. "What did she _do?_"

"And why wouldn't Elisa want us to come home?" Broadway wondered, bag of popcorn forgotten on the couch beside him. 

"You think it's easy to get a flight that'll ship pressurized cargo?" Lex pointed out. "I can hack the schedules to get us on, tough guy. I can't pull airplanes out of thin air." 

"So we should stay?" Broadway summed up. 

Webbed wings flexed as Lex shrugged. "Unless you want to glide all the way home."

Diane's fingers were interlaced with her husband's. "She'd tell us if something were really wrong." 

"She would," Peter echoed quietly. Leaning close, face grave. 

Beth yawned. "We'll check out the news tomorrow. If it's bad, it'll be there." Rubbing her eyes, she smiled sheepishly at the clan. "I'd love to stay up and chat with you guys, but I've got somebody to pick up in the morning. Doctor's appointment." 

"Who?" Peter frowned. "Not Apoyo?" 

"Dad." Beth drew it out into one long sound of patient exasperation. "Isabel's really very polite." Her eyes glinted. "Too polite, sometimes." 

"And what is _that_ supposed to mean?" 

"Dad!" Beth waved her hands. "She got shot in the line of duty, she can't drive herself, and she won't stay with her relatives. What am I supposed to do?"

"What's wrong with the lass' kin?" Hudson asked. There'd been an odd note in Peter's voice; as if his youngest child had been spending time in the company of a would-be mate he didn't approve. Yet Isabel was a woman's name. 

The retired cop traded glances with his wife. "They... don't really like Isabel's lifestyle choices," Diane ventured. 

Ah. That was the way of it, then? "'Tis a hard thing, knowing one of your young ones may not give you hatchlings to look after," Hudson allowed. 

The Trio's eyes bugged. "You mean she's-" Brooklyn started.

"We call them Two-Spirits," Beth said defiantly. 

"Some people call them that," Peter stated. _And we're not going to talk about it, _said the flat look in his eyes. "Early start?" 

"Fine." Beth shook her head, heading toward the small bedroom in the back. "Whatever." 

An angry silence lingered. "We did not mean to bring dissent to your clan." Goliath frowned. "Perhaps we should see this... Valley of the Gods after all." 

"This has been brewing a while," Peter admitted. "But if you're willing to spend the day..." He shook his head. "Maybe a little time off would do us both good."

~*~*~*~*~

"Whoa," Brooklyn breathed a few hours later. Red sandstone reached into the night sky, towering dancers in the dark. A cold wind blew through dry scrub, carrying a hint of snow.

"Sure you'll be all right?" Peter asked once more, stepping into the pickup.

"Ach, lad; we've hidden ourselves for the day before," Hudson said, hitching up his belt. "Don't worry about us." 

The engine faded in the distance as they climbed for a good wind. _Plenty of those_, Hudson thought. _Still. 'Tis a bit dry for a clan to call home_. 

"Stay together, and stay in contact," Goliath instructed the Trio. "We hope to find friends, but we are the strangers here." 

"Got it," Broadway nodded as they launched. 

"What do you think, old friend?" 

Spreading colored paper over an impatient Bronx, Hudson studied the drawings of the land around them. "I think, lad, that if 'twere me living here, I'd be wanting a cavern nigh a place to catch the wind." He eyed towering rocks. "A place none would think to look." 

"Hmm." Goliath drew a talon over the area, circling north. "Let us look here." 

__

And wasn't that a wondrous idea, Hudson thought sourly, watching the stars turn towards dawn as they soared. _Lots and lots of nothing_-

Brooklyn's voice, breathless over the radio. "We found tire tracks!" 

Goliath frowned at the snow-touched rock below. "As have we." 

"Looks like a cave to me," Broadway noted as they regrouped near the mass of red stone. "Tracks lead right in." 

"Only one entrance?" Goliath shook back his mane. "Few clans would stand for such." 

"Wait, lad." Hudson listened to the moaning wind, started climbing the side of the red dome. "Ye hear that?" 

A swift smile on the clan leader's face. "Yes." 

Brooklyn whistled as they found the source of the moan. "Man, it just goes down...." 

Lex peered into the red well of stone. Wide and open enough for an entire clan to swarm through, yet hidden from only a few yards away. "Looks like it used to be a volcano." 

Brooklyn jerked his beak back. "You mean this thing could go off?" 

Lex rolled his eyes. "Maybe in a few more thousand years." 

"There's something down there," Broadway muttered. "No - Bronx, wait!" 

The beast was already over the edge and climbing, talons biting crimson stone. A blue nose snuffled rising air; Bronx whined, hitting a piece of rock where the angle went well past vertical. 

"It seems quiet within," Goliath noted. "Let us investigate." 

"Oh, man," Lex breathed, swooping to touch down on the gray concrete floor. A raised pad stood in the center, rimmed in warning yellow, lights shining onto its empty center. Ranks of computers stood behind yellow guardrails at one side of the cavern, under the protection of the rock ceiling. "This is awesome!" 

"Talk about your secret hideouts," Brooklyn chuckled, trying the handles on lockers marked _Ammo_ and _Emergency Supplies_.

Broadway lifted a dry coffee mug, while Bronx rooted in a dark corner. "Doesn't look like gargoyles live here." 

"A human hiding place." Goliath raised a brow ridge. "Yet for what?" 

Lex jerked a thumb toward the yellow pad. "It's going to sound a little unreal, but... my guess would be a helicopter." Cracking yellow knuckles, he headed for the main computer terminal. 

Hudson gazed up the narrow chimney of stone. "_Could_ ye get one o' those metal dragons up there?" 

"I couldn't," the smaller gargoyle admitted, tapping the console on. "Not without a little more practice. Let's see... yeah, another blow for the computer illiterate." He waved a yellow note that had been stuck under the keyboard. "Mike Rivers, A8-W976. People are _so_ predictable." 

"Whoever this Mike is, he's not going to be happy," Brooklyn pointed out. 

"You want him happy or you want to know what's going on here?" Lex started opening files.

"We've little time, lads," Hudson warned, eyeing the stars visible through the column of stone. "I've no liking to be stuck in here after dawn." 

"Elisa's clan should know what lairs on their land." Goliath crossed muscular forearms. "Make haste." 

"Let's see." Lex frowned at the screen. "We've got phone numbers, schedules, parts... that's a lot of computer circuitry...."

Broadway shuffled through papers, reading in a low undertone. "Confidential report on the former Soviet Republic of... Ka-zahk-stan. Toxic gases, Siberian holding facility. Missile emplacements of the... Ural montane region, Bulgarian report-" he jerked the papers away. "Whoa!" 

"Ah, guys?" Brooklyn held up a stray submachine gun magazine. "Whoever these guys are, they are _not_ going to be nice if they find us here." 

__

Enter secondary password, flashed on the screen.

"Jalapeña!" Lex started digging into the papers around the console. "Anybody see another of these?"

"We should be going, lads." Hudson seized up Bronx, detaching a stray pen from massive fangs. "Unless ye wish t' take the chance such as need such dire knowledge'll look kindly on visitors." 

"Cover your trail," Goliath declared, sinking talons into red stone. "We will return." 

"Just when it was getting good," Lex grumbled as they soared off. 

"Just when it was getting dangerous," Brooklyn corrected. "Goliath, whoever these guys are, they've got the kind of paperwork that's not supposed to be outside of razor wire and guys in black suits with mirrored sunglasses."

Goliath growled, pointing to a stone hollow that offered shelter for the day. "Agents of espionage?" 

"Spies!" Broadway agreed, dropping to sandstone. 

"Well-armed ones," Hudson said thoughtfully. He'd met a spy or two, defending Castle Wyvern. Most had little in the way of weapons, trusting to their own cleverness to hide them. 

But when that failed... then they struck like cornered rats. 

"We'd better be careful if we go back there," Lex said, evidently following his thoughts. "I tried to erase my entry, but I didn't have enough time to find the backup log."

"They might expect us." Goliath rumbled. "Still... I would know why they have chosen this place to hide their activities." Posing for the day, he hesitated. 

Sword outstretched, Hudson paused. "Lad?" 

Goliath cupped an ear to the wind. "Listen!" 

A howl, far off and metallic-

__

Sunrise.


	2. Hovering In

Desert Fox Chapter 2

A/N: Disclaimers in Chapter 1.

~*~*~*~*~

Sandstone pinnacles towered against the sky, black against starlit night. Drifts of snow stirred in wind from a silent helicopter's rotors, dusting ice grains like handfuls of diamonds. 

"Still don't like leaving Le Van," Caitlin murmured from the engineer's seat. 

"Dominic can handle him." 

"We don't know what happened in New York." 

"Nope." String quelled the urge to rub the hairs on the back of his neck. Part of that was the Lady, still jumpy after whatever had cut loose five hours ago. Part was knowing Michael had headed toward that mess, unarmed, when every instinct String had was shouting to get under cover and shoot anything that came near. 

Well. Not unarmed, knowing Archangel. But Firm jets didn't carry missiles. 

__

Pilot Michael, Archangel out of sortie range, Airwolf grumbled. 

"We know, Lady. We know." Caitlin sighed. "You think this microdot's still important?" 

"Maybe. Least we're a few hours closer, if something does go-" 

An electronic warble stung sensitive ears; Caitlin punched up the descrambler. "Yeah?" 

"It's always enlightening to hear your dulcet tones over my phone line. A true model of FCC protocol." Wood creaked against plastic; Archangel's cane against an airplane seat, if String knew sounds. 

"Who else would be on this frequency?" the redhead challenged. 

"No one, if you're fortunate." A distant roar; jet engines pushing a plane into the sky.

__

Link distance shortening, Airwolf reported. _Anticipating return to Airwolf range of operations? _

"Not now, Lady...."

String caught the weariness in familiar tones. "Michael. If you want secure-"

"I'll stick to more mundane forms of communication," came the dry reply. "Call me old-fashioned, but I believe in the inherent superiority of auditory and visual transmission media."

As opposed to the parapsychological. String smiled. That was more like Archangel's usual bite. 

"Anyway, it's over. Now we get to handle the clean-up." A hint of a sigh. "The agency infighting on that ought to be interesting." 

"What _happened?_" Caitlin demanded.

"The Joint Chiefs asked that question in a much more colorful manner. I'm sending you some of our preliminary reports. I'd be on the ground when you read them." Archangel's voice dropped. "Make contact with Zorra. It's suddenly become vital to know how much support Demona has among her people." 

String raised a brow. "Demona?"

"It's in-" 

"The report," Caitlin finished. "Want to give us a clue?" 

A moment's silence. "I refuse to condone genocide based on the acts of one person." 

Caitlin sucked in a breath. String frowned. "You're serious." 

"We've got several million terrified people out here, Hawke. And it's been my experience that it is never wise to frighten politicians." 

"Missiles first, diplomacy later," String translated.

"Generally speaking, yes."

Cait bit her lip. "Is there anything we can do?" 

"Get me the truth." 

"And if that doesn't work?" Caitlin demanded. 

A longer silence. "Call me when you have something." The line _click_ed. 

__

Multiple files received, Airwolf informed them._ Scan detects low-level shield, ongoing access of older memory banks; "favors", "assets", "biographic leverage". Probable cause: Michael, Archangel running multiple tactical scenarios._

Biographic leverage; the polite term for what people not in the Game called blackmail. That was Archangel, all right; plotting his way clear of whatever mess life had suddenly thrown them. "Bet you he's not gonna get back to sleep 'til tomorrow," Caitlin said ruefully.

"No bet." 

Hawke held the collective steady, easing Airwolf down through walls of red stone. Snow skirled down around them, drawn in by their downwash. Stars glimmered above in the fading dark before dawn, shining into the cavern that had been Airwolf's Lair for almost three years. "Been a while since we've done this." 

"Never did like doing it at night," Caitlin murmured. "'Course, that was back when night was dark."

__

IFF transponder mimicking Airwolf II signal, scrolled across Tactical. _Lair security measures disarmed. Monitoring Lair systems for signs of Airwolf II return._

"Let's hope Sinj stays busy for a while." Hawke set her down, taking a moment to eye what the Company had made of the bare rock they'd spent so many hours in. Lights. Computers. A regular landing pad, for goodness' sake. 

Caitlin was scanning the cavern, something sad and lost on her face. "Doesn't feel like home anymore."

__

Mission base relocated: Eagle Lake, California. Airwolf's voice in their minds was soft and feathery as always, with just a touch of wistful regret. She'd spent more of those years here than they had, waiting between missions, hoping one day to break Moffet's chains and speak to those who cared for her. _Main re-supply and repair relocated to Knightsbridge_. 

"Yeah." For better or worse, they belonged with Michael now. And this place belonged to the Company. 

The Company, whose little mess they could - hopefully - clear up in a few hours. 

__

Alert! IR scan indicates presence of multiple individuals in Lair, approximately twenty minutes ago.

Helmet in hand, String paused. People in the Lair, without setting off the alarms? When they _knew_ Sinj and the others were out of town? "Not good," Caitlin murmured. "Can you bring it up on screen?"

Ghostly trails of heat shimmered over a display of the cavern, dispersed around the floor. The freshest was a wide swath up sheer stone, climbing up and out. 

Stone that was no longer sheer, String saw, zooming in on vertical stone. Finger-long holes pocked red rock, as if a massive, three-clawed cat had clawed stone like wood. 

__

Three claws. "Gargoyle?" 

__

Match 97% accuracy, Airwolf agreed. _Multiple tracks. Width of marks indicates at least three individuals. Potentially six._

"Not Zorra." Caitlin looked grim.

"Not unless she brought friends." String touched the gun in his shoulder holster. "Better see what they messed with." 

Ten minutes later, they had a fair idea. "Damn!" Caitlin swore, spying inhuman fingerprints on documents that should have been under lock and key. "Rivers?" 

"Or Sinj," String sighed. His brother had spent too much time in field assignments without paperwork that could compromise him lying around. Jo Santini had better sense. "Looks like they were in the computer, too." 

"How far d'you think they got?" 

"Don't know. Don't plan to find out." No sense confusing the trail. "Airwolf, trip the tap." 

__

Acknowledged.

"If Locke only knew," Caitlin chuckled, eyeing the computers Archangel's personnel had left for the Company agent to find, over a year ago. Computers Jason Locke had gone through with a fine-toothed comb... without finding more than half of Archangel's 'extras'. 

A small smile touched String's face. Until Locke got back here to handle his own problems, the Lair's computer security would be out of his Machiavellian hands. 

And into Archangel's. Who could have given Machiavelli a few pointers. 

Caitlin joined him by Airwolf's side, having swept the area to her satisfaction. "They couldn't have gotten too far before sunrise." 

"And we could look all day and walk right by them," String growled, eyeing pocked stone. "Why we laired up out here in the first place. Plenty of room to get lost." He cast her a frustrated look. "Sooner we find Apoyo, the sooner we can get the hell out of here." 

__

Reviewing files: New York Demona Incident. Alert - Preliminary reports have no database match outside Bethancourt datafiles. 

Just when he thought the day couldn't get worse. "Let's see it." 

__

Displaying summary.

String scanned glowing letters, Caitlin's breath warm on his neck as she read beside him. Assault, explosions, mass chaos - psychokinetic transformations?

Caitlin's fingers clutched tight on his arm. Without looking, he knew she was rereading the same incredible lines.

Archangel had sent this. Which meant Michael believed it. 

__

Unknown whether available protocols sufficient to block psychokinetic transformation.   
Datafiles indicate energy levels required for full shield dangerously high.   
Pilot intent: exercise due caution? 

"Yeah."

Dark wheels thudded onto the landing pad; String steadied his motorcycle with one hand, checking for any signs of leaking oil or flat tires. Caitlin went through their packs one last time, calling out items as he went down the checklist. Water, thermal blankets, guns, radios, repair kit; everything they might need, caught out alone in the Utah-Arizona desert. Michael's "little jobs" had a habit of turning into life-or-death fubars in a matter of moments. 

And then it was load up and roar into the dawn, Caitlin's arms wrapped around his waist. 

String leaned into the wind, visor blocking most of the chill from his face. Utah's sky was a glory of stars; the Milky Way a river of sun-struck diamonds. Enhanced vision picked out every shadow of stone or shrub, leading them through the snowy maze of red rock safer than most could drive by full sun. Walls of stone fell away behind them.

Caitlin's laughter tickled through his ribs. "Now, this is the way to see Arizona!"

String smiled, feeling the soft sweep of Airwolf through the back of his mind, drawing him back from the edge when sight would have swamped him. Without asking, he knew she was doing the same for Caitlin; keeping their focus clear and steady, gently tugging back senses that threatened to wander. _Thanks, Lady_.

__

Fun, came the gleeful reply; a bounce of fur and feathers that echoed of the breeze rushing past them, the bright blaze of starlight they raced through. Airwolf would rather be knifing through the wind herself, but given that daylight sorties weren't an option, ghosting along in her pilots' minds was a good second. 

Dawn rimmed the east, gilding cliff tops along their left. String tipped his head back, knowing Cait could hear him through a hurricane. "Next stop, Third Mesa." 

~*~*~*~*~

Paolo Argentino lowered his binoculars with a scowl, glaring at the nondescript trailer. Tucked into the hollow behind him, a pair of helicopters disgorged the last of his men, rotors winding down. "You are certain the demon is here?" 

Ricardo nodded. The loud clothing of a tourist had been replaced by nondescript tans; colors that didn't stand out as camouflage, but not nearly as obvious as orange and green floral print. "Somewhere, yes." 

"It won't come," Miguel Quintano rasped. Thick bandages stretched from the former patrol officer's cheek down one side of his throat, hinting at the extent of the burns underneath. "Not until dark." 

"Which is why we will take her in the daylight," Paolo said coolly. His brother's killer would not survive. Honor demanded it... and practicality. Already the other cartels were sniffing at his heels, testing to see how much damage had been done, how vulnerable the Argentinos might now be. Only a body would hold them at bay. 

But only a fool would take Apoyo and her demon together. 

A wave of his hand dispersed his men into the desert. Ricardo had watched their target for days now; within an hour of the sun's rise, she would return. 

They had only to wait. 

~*~*~*~*~

Walking down from the hills, Isabel saw a trio of little gray birds thunder into the air. 

Maybe the elders could have identified them, she thought, feeling her daypack thump against her whole arm. To her they were just LGBs; unknown and nameless as bits of bone around a poison spring. Far less important than bracing herself for the ride to the doctor with Beth; one long conversational assault to get her to give in and speak to the university group, probably. But it wasn't as if rides were thick on the ground out here. 

Still. Something about the birds seemed off. 

Working her way past loose grit, Isabel replayed the flight in her mind. LGBs were timid creatures, just enough brains to ID food from predators and windows - though sometimes they made a mistake on windows. No matter how quiet her stride, she would startle them. 

But the birds were _ahead_ of her. 

Adrenaline iced through her veins. _Act as if nothing's wrong_. Nonchalantly she wandered over toward a wire-stemmed shrub, as if the bright mica scattered near its base had caught her eye. Sniffed the wind as Zorra had taught her. Listened. 

A taste of exhaust, bitter in the chill morning air. A tiny click of pebble on pebble. 

__

Run like hell. 

Isabel squashed the impulse, feeling her limits in every catch of breath, every low throb in her wrist. Instead she circled the bush, kicking up dust. Mentally calculating her options, her resources, the enemy's likely angle of attack. _Holdout gun, check. Water, check. Jacket, pack_.... 

Dust drifted in the wind, cloaking her form. Hiding the moment as she slipped around the low hill-

Shards of rock sprayed into the air; the _crack_ of a rifle reached her moments later. _They made me!_

More shots, ripping at stone. The tramp of running feet. Isabel ducked, never deviating from the path in her head. Chilled fingers tore at her blouse, ripping off the buttons one hand couldn't undo. They could outrun her. They could outgun her.

But she knew these hills. And if she could just reach that crest there, a hair out of sight, where scars of an old landslide beckoned and the rock was old and brittle-

Heat passed by her leg, close enough to shock. Oh, Mother Mary, she was going to die here, and Zorra would die, and it was all going to be for nothing....

__

Don't think! Just do.

And Isabel was out of sight, just above the crest, red rocks stirring ominously about her feet. One move slung her pack clear of the scree, stripped the remnants of her shirt from her form, leaving tan skin a rash of gooseflesh. She screamed, high and shrill, tossing pale blue fabric onto the slope as she pushed a wobbling boulder with all her might.

The world roared. 

~*~*~*~*~

"Too easy." Miguel spat on the landslide, sneering at the flutter of blue cotton under stone. "Just like a _Norteamericana_." 

"Yes," Paolo agreed thoughtfully, submachine gun slung over his shoulder. A wave of his hand beckoned his men in from their search of the slide. "Too easy." 

It'd taken the better part of an hour for the slope to settle enough to climb. Time they could spare, out here where no one came. But still... something was not right. 

Scraps of dusty blue, half-hidden under red rock. Paolo settled onto his haunches, peering into unsteady crevices. If Apoyo were buried in the landslide, it would be best to leave her here. The fewer clues the better; not that he worried about States law. But an open murder warrant would make further dealings with some of his associates... less pleasant. 

__

If she were buried. 

"Dig." 

Miguel recoiled. "We should be away from here. Surely, there is no need-" 

Paolo's eyes were black ice, chilling his men to the bone._ "Dig." _

Apoyo had survived once, when only a demon's own luck could have saved her. She might have done it again. 

Rubble shifted. Dust hung heavy in the air. Boulders were shoved aside, spilling stones on the slope below them.

"_Santa Maria_...." Miguel lifted out tattered cloth. 

Unstained cloth. 

"_Jefe_ - there is no body!" 

__

"Bastarda!" Red rage flickered around the edge of Paolo's vision. That a _woman _could do this - a bitch of an American, who lay with demons instead of men- 

__

"¡Jefe!" Ricardo, over the radio. "A pickup." 

Heading this way._ "¿Policía?" _

"No." Lustful satisfaction in his spy's tone. "A woman. One I have seen... _with_ her." 

Another _perra_. His men's eyes gleamed at the thought of teaching this one what it was to have men. "Do we take her?" one asked.

"You, you, and Ricardo," Paolo waved a hand. "Manuel, Enrico - track the _bastarda_. The rest of you, with me in the helicopters." Dark eyes glared at the waiting desert. "No witnesses." 

~*~*~*~*~

String felt Caitlin's fingers squeeze tight, more than the plume of red dust they rode through could account for. A strand of red hair tickled his neck as she nodded down the road. "Trouble."

He cast his own hearing ahead, listening past the sound of their motorcycle. While he'd focussed on keeping them in one piece on this dent in the dirt laughingly called a road, Caitlin had been tracking the truck two miles down, trying to determine who else might be heading out Apoyo's way. They'd heard a pair of light helicopter turbines about half an hour ago; not unusual, in this land of empty space. But odd enough to set already-jangled nerves twitching. 

Still. There was no reason for whoever was in the truck to be hostile.

__

Since when have we been that lucky?

Listening now, he heard birdsong. The rustle of wind through dry branches. A woman's angry voice. "Son of a -"

__

Crack. 

Flesh on flesh; the bone-breaking slap of a man's hand. Coarse laughter, and a suggestion of just what they were planning to do to this _chica_ that brought a vile curse to Caitlin's lips. 

"I'll give you '_chica_,'" the woman panted, "You-" 

__

Crack. 

String's eyes narrowed. "Three." 

"Unless one of 'em's not talking," Caitlin pointed out. One arm released him, reaching back into the saddlebags for his automatic. Hers was already holstered. "Guess we find out if Archangel's permits cover the reservation."

~*~*~*~*~

__

Nine hours to sunset, Beth calculated, tasting blood. The greaseball's hand was an iron vise on her arm, encircling her with a tan sleeve that stank of sweat and musk. _Way too long_. 

This couldn't be happening. This was her own truck he'd pinned her against, as his two cronies opened the tailgate. Her sister was a cop. Her brother was a cop. She was a cop's daughter, and there was no way these three pigs were going to - going to-

"Too bad," the mustached thug whispered in her ear, "We only have time to play - once." 

Beth slammed her head back where she thought his nose was; jarred skull against skull, points of pain blasting through her vision. _Funny... always works in the movies_....

She saw the hand coming, tried to duck-

Something sprayed her, hot and wet. Her captor screamed, overlapping a short, flat _crack _of gunfire. 

Beth jerked against the iron grip, slipped free as Mustache held up a shattered, bloody hand. She slid to the ground, scooting out of sight under her pickup as the two sidekicks pointed their submachine guns toward the echoing shot. 

"I wouldn't." Mirrored lenses watched them from an idling motorcycle; a lean man leveled a matte-black automatic pistol on the nearest whole thug. "My partner's a very good shot." 

The shorter sidekick spat something in Spanish, brought his gun on target-

Which was no longer there, motor revving in a spurt of red dust. Beth cringed under the truck bed as more shots rang out; a long rip of thunder, punctuated by five firecracker snaps.

Silence. The motor cut off. A creak of metal; someone leaning a motorcycle onto its kickstand. A sobbing moan; if she hadn't heard her captors' vile boasts, it would have sounded like... pleading.... 

__

"Hagáse el muerto._"_ The motorcycle rider. Voice level and cold as polished ice. 

A shuddering sob. _"Sí, sí...." _

Small, dark boots moved across Beth's line of vision; a freckled face peered under the truck. "It's okay," the woman said soothingly. She held out a pale hand. "I'm Caitlin. You're gonna be all right." 

Shaking, Beth scrambled out from under the transmission, gripping a hand whose calluses felt way too familiar to a cop's daughter. _Gun callus_. 

But a warm hand. She didn't feel warm. She wasn't sure she'd ever feel warm again. "You're not tribal police." 

"We'll have to call them. Do you have a radio?" Caitlin studied her swollen cheek, touched gentle fingers to the edge of hot pain. "Looks like they cracked the bone. Should be okay, but it's gonna hurt like heck." She glanced toward the motorcycle rider. "Hawke?" 

Hawke was tying the wrists of a bleeding man with a cut length of nylon camp cord, ignoring twisted bodies sprawled on red ground. Mirrored lenses gave nothing away. _"¿Dónde es Isabel?"_

__

"Por favor...."

Cold patience, as Hawke folded away his pocketknife._ "¿Dónde es Isabel?"_

"Radio? No, I don't have a radio... Isabel? You know Isabel?" Beth stared at still, bloody forms, swallowing as a dank stench hit her nose. "They're dead." 

"Yeah." The redhead's gaze was bleak. "Here. Channel 9 ought to hook you up with the locals." 

A walkie-talkie, Beth realized, wrapping her fingers around black plastic. High-end model, looked like; the kind Elisa had borrowed from the SWAT team, once or twice. "Who _are_ you people?" 

"Good Samaritans." Hawke didn't look up. "Wasn't your shot, Cait." 

"You don't know that!"

"I know where I aimed." His voice dropped low and cold as morning frost. "And I know you understand English. Who do you work for? Where's Isabel?" 

"Go to hell!" the surviving thug spat. 

"Fine." With no regard for the man's yelps, Hawke dragged him into the bed of Beth's pickup. 

__

I don't believe this, Beth thought incredulously. Her free hand wiped the stickiness from her throat, came away red. _I just don't believe this_.

Slamming the tailgate, Hawke dusted off his hands. "Cait?" 

"There was more of them." Caitlin circled the trailer, climbing a low rise. She picked up a squashed cigarette butt, sniffed it; dropped it back to the ground. "Looks like they hung out here a while, then took off." She stooped again, coming up with a bright handful of spent cartridges. "Submachine guns." 

"Excuse me?" _Is that my voice?_ Beth thought in passing. _Sounds too hysterical to be my voice. I don't get hysterical_.... "People are _dead_ here. You killed them!" 

"And we told you to call the cops." God, the man could've been ordering a cup of coffee. "Trail?" 

"Looks like she headed up that landslide," Caitlin replied, peering into the distance. "Bought her some time, maybe... think she headed cross-country?" 

Hawke nodded. "Somewhere with guns. Probably by way of places a helicopter couldn't get to." 

"_If_ she knows they're after her," Caitlin pointed out, grabbing packs off the back of the motorcycle.

Hawke caught the one she tossed. "She knows." Mirrored lenses turned Beth's way. "We'll be on Channel 12." A hint of a smile. "It'd help if you told the locals not to shoot us." 

~*~*~*~*~

Rotors chewed the air overhead; Isabel squeezed her eyes shut and prayed. The lining of her jacket was silky warm against bare skin, gaping into chill around her neck. Dust crept into her nostrils, drawn by the hint of moisture in the sandstone boulder's shadow. She fought a sneeze. _You're a rock. Think like a rock_. 

Intellectually she knew the limits of human vision. She'd ridden in helicopters more than once, trying to spot smugglers from Mexico; she knew how the eye fixed on movement, any movement. So long as she lay still in the shadow, she should be safe. 

__

They could have IR-

They could. But the mass of stone should block most of her body heat from the sky. This spot was close to perfect. 

__

Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. 

Oh, and wasn't _that_ a pleasant thought. All the Argentinos would have to do was drop one charge from that hovering nightmare- 

Rotors whined, pitching lower and softer. Wind stirred the dust; settled. 

__

They're... leaving? 

The rumbling beat vanished into the distance, leaving only the moan of winds over rock. 

__

Now's your chance. Move!

Isabel surged up; sank teeth into her lip at the screaming pain. Something was wrong in her chest. Terribly wrong. 

__

It's not like hurling yourself up mountain slopes a week after a sucking chest wound is a good_ idea...._

She licked away blood, grimacing at the coppery taste. Coughed. Felt the catch in chipped ribs, and leaned back against chill stone. _This is the best chance you're going to get. Get moving. Get to help. Get to_.... 

Isabel blinked, gaze wandering dizzily across red-banded stone. If the sun was there, and she'd walked in from there... or had she? She'd done her level best not to leave a trail, and apparently she'd succeeded. She might have come in that gap ahead, or maybe across those stones, or down that scrap of a stream.... 

__

I don't believe this. I don't believe _this._

Lost. Less than an hour from home. In her own homeland. 

__

I am so screwed. 

~*~*~*~*~

Down on one knee, String studied the faint tracks of a wounded woman. Just scatterings of dust, for the most part; sometimes hidden completely by the heavy footprints of those following. But this stretch of prints was almost clear. _Let's see. According to the map, we're right about_.... 

The GPS coordinates slid into mind easily as breathing, Airwolf locating them in relation to her own position. Within about seventy feet of what the map indicated. Fairly close, as far as maps of this area went. 

Caitlin leaned over his shoulder, gaze flicking up every few seconds to make sure they weren't seen. Less than a hundred yards away they could hear footsteps crunching on dry grass, sharp Mexican curses at the dust, the heat, the stones that turned under leather boots. "Do we take them?" A bare breath against his ear; an ordinary person standing beside them would have heard nothing. 

"Two on two, automatic weapons, and they can call in helicopters?" Raised brows gave his impression of those odds. "Not if we don't have to." 

"If we could take 'em out, we'd have a head start."

"Yeah." If only they could do it quickly. Any distress call, and they'd get two armed helicopters in their laps. Which wouldn't do them or Apoyo any good. "We need a distraction." 

__

Daylight sorties generally undesirable.   
Mitigating factors: Local terrain favors nap-of-the-earth flight, local terrain recorded, low population density.   
Engage autopilot?

String blinked at the fluff-warm question. There was an option he hadn't considered. "You've never hovered out of the Lair on your own, Angel."

__

Proper strategies recorded.

"It's trickier than it looks," Caitlin murmured. "Better not." 

__

Pilot hazard, Airwolf lamented. 

"Not yet it's not," String muttered.

"We'll be careful, Lady," Caitlin promised. "Worrywart." 

__

Pilot survival crucial factor in Airwolf survival. _Full link contact positive reinforcing influence on Airwolf A.I. Link cessation negative outcome_. 

The corners of String's mouth twitched. "Translation: don't get yourselves killed, I'd have to break in a whole new set of pilots." 

"Hawke!" Cait smothered a giggle, listening to the Mexicans move ahead. "You know she likes us better than that!" 

"I know." He gestured at the tracks. "She was hiding them better before." 

"She's hurt bad." Caitlin swallowed, blue eyes hardening as she thought of the bloody form they'd rescued a week ago. "And she doesn't know anyone's looking for her." 

Anyone friendly, anyway. "So will she keep going, or hole up?" 

"You're askin' me?" 

"I'd hole up and take my chances," String said frankly. "But I'm not a woman. And we both know what these bastards will do to a woman if they find her." 

"Would you hole up, Hawke?" Caitlin watched him like a falcon, gaze full of wary compassion. "After Angela. Would you hole up?" 

He drew in a sharp breath. Horn's daughter. The woman who'd made him share her life... and her bed. _I'd die before I'd go back there_. "I'd run." 

"Run like hell," the redhead agreed. "Hello...."

Caitlin dropped into a crouch, grin lighting her face as she studied a faint trail on the ground. Step by step, she followed the winding, serpentine path, stopping just before a patch of gray-leafed brush. 

Catching the diamond pattern of gray on gray, String drew in a subtle breath. "Cait?" 

"Just like catchin' trout...." Blue eyes flickering over the bush, she lunged. 

Something hissed, a long, thrashing coil of gray-speckled muscle. Hollow scales rattled furiously, fangs stymied in their reach for the slender hand that pinned them just behind the skull. A forked tongue licked out, tasting the molecules that bore the scent of its captor.

Arms full of rattlesnake, the former Texan chuckled. "Think we just found our surprise." 


	3. Conclusion

****

Desert Fox Chapter 3

A/N: Disclaimers in chapter 1.

~*~*~*~*~

"Mom!" 

Peter Maza stepped aside as Beth lunged into her mother's arms, shaking like a leaf. Water still darkened her throat where some compassionate deputy had helped her clean up. "Oh, Mom, it was awful... they _shot_ them...." 

"Multiple shooting?" the former cop asked the officer in charge, eyeing the black bags being hauled into the coroner's wagon. 

Lieutenant Tewanima's face was politely neutral. "We're still-"

"Investigating, I know." Peter nodded. This wasn't New York. He couldn't call on old favors here. "Just tell me. Were they after my daughter?" It could be possible. Goliath's clan had made enemies. Some very powerful enemies, though Xanatos seemed to have declared a truce after the clan helped defend his son against Oberon's attack. 

The lieutenant grimaced. "Doesn't look like it." 

So if not Beth, then- "Apoyo." 

The shift of Tewanima's gaze toward the surrounding hills was answer enough. 

~*~*~*~*~

"Manuel, report." 

The Mexican tracker exchanged a resigned glance with his partner. "The trail is difficult, _jefe_," he reported. "We follow as we can." 

Helicopter engines were a steady beat in the background. "You need more men. We will rendezvous in twenty minutes." 

__

"Sí, jefe." 

"We don't need more men," Enrico grumbled, striking a match on sandstone for his cigarette. "Clumsy-footed city dwellers, stomp all over the trail." 

"You wish to tell that to Argentino?" 

Enrico snorted. "I like breathing, _sí?_" 

__

"Sí." Manuel bent near the dust. "I think she tires. See, the track is almost clear-" 

A curve of gray and black slid under his eyes, rattling as it came.

"Aiieee!" 

~*~*~*~*~

Huddled against chill rock, Isabel peered out toward the shriek. _Sounded close_.

Gunshots. Definitely close-

Silence. 

Footsteps. Close and quiet. Isabel's gaze blurred, making out two gray forms; a man with mirrored sunglasses, a woman whose bright blaze of red hair was almost hidden under a desert-tan boonie hat. 

"Don't move. We'll get you out of here." 

A half-remembered voice; an echo of rescue out of nightmare. Isabel blinked, trying to bring the face into focus. She felt hands near her ribs, heard a whispered curse as gentle fingers traced torn flesh. Blue eyes. Something about those eyes.... "Are you... real?" 

A smile flickered over the grim face. "Yeah." 

"Good." Eyes closed, Isabel let darkness sweep down. 

~*~*~*~*~

__

Not good, String thought, lowering the DEA agent into a patch of shade. They'd had to move her; even with the two trackers tied up and stuffed under rocks, her boulder hideout had been too close to Argentino's rendezvous. Their map had showed this shallow valley just over two ridges; a rocky, broken area with wind-sculpted hollows to hide in and a tiny seep of water too small for even the local Navajo shepherds to bother with. So they'd wrapped Apoyo in his sleeping bag and made tracks. 

He just hoped they hadn't killed her trying to save her. 

A rustle of denim let him know Caitlin was back from hiding their trail. "How's she doin'?" 

"Pulse is good," String said, keeping his voice low. "Lips have color, and her lungs sound clear. I can't find any swelling." He peeled back Apoyo's jacket for a moment, ignoring modesty to touch lightly around the stitches. No feel of fever heat, or air moving where it shouldn't be. "Hope she just pushed herself too hard." 

"We didn't bring an IV," Caitlin cursed. 

"Have to remember that next time." String zipped the jacket back up, wrapped glossy black down over the woman to hold in warmth. "Sugar water. With some salt." 

"If she wakes up to take it." Caitlin smoothed a stray black strand from Isabel's forehead. "Should've known Argentinos wouldn't give her up so easy."

String covered her hand with his; a small comfort, against the self-loathing in that sweetly familiar voice. "We did what we could." 

"Did we?" A ragged edge of pain. One moment's indecision - one yielding-up of a man to an officer with authority - and Caitlin still felt as if she'd pulled the trigger herself. "Did we, Hawke?" 

"We got her out of Sonora," String stated bluntly. "We got her to people who were supposed to be looking out for her. You want to beat somebody up, punch out the DEA agent on her case." He rubbed his thumb gently along her knuckles. "We'll get her out of here." 

The redhead's fingers flexed under his, pressing lightly back. "Thing I love about you, Hawke? I know you're not just saying that." 

Lie? To Cait? Not an option. He took out their radio. "So let's figure out just how we're going to do it." 

~*~*~*~*~

"Manuel. Report." Paolo released the transmitter on his walkie-talkie, listened to the static of empty air as helicopter rotors slowed to silence. "Where _are _they?" Enrico might not be the most timely of men, but Manuel should have kept him in line. The older tracker had worked for the Argentinos since his discharge from the Mexican Army. Manuel knew better than to cross him.

"Brass!" Miguel sniffed the casing, raw lips pulled back in a grimace. "Fresh." 

And no bodies. No blood. Paolo gathered his men with a flick of eyes. "Pair up. Search." 

Half an hour of nerve-wracking hunting turned up two bound, bruised trackers, gagged with their own bandannas. Bare feet were scratched and bloody, and dark eyes were wide and panicked. _"¡Jefe!"_ Enrico coughed as red cotton came free. "We can explain. There was _una víbora enorme_-"

Snakes didn't use tent rope. Paolo silenced him with a glare. Turned to Manuel. "How many?" 

"Two, I think. It happened so fast...." He twitched a thorn-laden toe, winced. "They took our shoes." 

"_Shoes?_ As if that should prevent you from-" Argentino paused. Looked over the landscape with new eyes. 

The thorn-studded, cactus-laden, briar-wreathed landscape. 

__

He lets the land fight for him. Dangerous. Sign of an intelligent foe. 

__

Or a desperate one. 

The drug lord reined in anger. Once he found Apoyo - then he could afford to listen to the sweet crunch of breaking bones. "Did they say anything?" 

Enrico shook his head desperately. "It was like fighting ghosts!" 

"Operatives," Manuel said firmly, the ex-soldier's more experienced tone steadying his younger partner. "Those who have been through the Americans' special training; they move so." He faced Argentino with no hint of apology in his eyes. "They knew we were here; they knew their objective. They are very, very good." 

"Yet you are alive." Argentino's voice was silk over steel. 

"A dead body would not have delayed you," Manuel shrugged, never taking his gaze off Paolo. 

True. Blood would have been clear sign his men had failed. Instead, he had been left unknowing, spending time to be sure.... "They buy time." 

Manuel shifted his gaze to the red earth, leaning on Miguel's helpful arm to stagger about the briar-laced ground. "Two," the tracker stated after a long minute. "Not tall, as Americans go. One is a woman." 

Another woman? "They do not allow women to fight." Even _norteaméricanos_ were not that foolish. 

"In the military, no." Manuel sank to the ground, prying open a Swiss Army knife to tease splinters out from under his skin. "In the DEA, yes." 

So they would smash three operatives instead of one. "If they buy time, they expect help, and that help will call," Paolo said coldly. "Scan the radio frequencies. We _will_ find them." 

~*~*~*~*~

"What do you mean, you can't send anyone after them?" Beth demanded. 

Coordinating crowd-control and a wrecker with his men over the radio, Lieutenant Tewanima looked distinctly uncomfortable. On the one hand Peter sympathized; he'd faced his own unpalatable dilemmas as a cop, and having an insistent civilian in your face didn't make anything any easier. On the other... Peter might not like Apoyo, but the woman was in real danger. 

Unfortunately, so was half the reservation. 

"Look. Ma'am. If there are armed men in helicopters out there-" 

"They said there were," Beth argued.

"They also said they were good Samaritans." Tewanima's dark scowl showed his opinion of that. "If he's the same Stringfellow Hawke as the bike plates say, all we know is he's from California and he doesn't have any outstanding warrants. We can't send Search and Rescue out if they're going to get shot at. Not without an escort - and we can't free up anybody for an escort."

"Why not?" 

The lieutenant gave Beth a look that should have shriveled prickly pears at ten paces. "Have you been listening to the news?" 

"A little... so there are gargoyles in New York. So what?" 

Peter winced. _Beth, now is not the time to pull out the peace and tolerance card. _Loving your fellow humans with different lifestyle choices was one thing. Accepting the existence of large, fanged, monstrous-looking beings when the world had apparently gone completely insane - that was a bit much to ask of any person. 

Though New York was probably having an easier time than the rest of the world. After all, they had a two-hundred-foot lizard as permanent resident. What were a few gargoyles, after that? 

"Have you ever seen a riot? Ask your father about them. They're not an 'interesting cultural phenomenon'." Slamming his car door, Tewanima tore down the road. 

"He's right," Peter sighed, ushering Beth toward their sedan. The tribal police had confiscated the pickup, bad guy and all. "If someone doesn't stop transmitting from New York, we could have real trouble on our hands." At least now they knew what Elisa hadn't wanted to say over the phone. Magic loose in the streets? Demona attacking the Ghostbusters' firehall? Hundreds of people transformed by some odd, rumored mix of magic and biotechnology? 

__

Was Elisa hit? No, she would have told us. She wouldn't keep that a secret... would she? 

Beth was still fuming, New York the last thing on her mind. "He could at least have told them that!" 

Diane took her other arm. "How? It's not like they left a number." 

Beth brandished a radio. "I mean, it's not like it would have been such a big deal to-" 

Peter snatched black plastic. "What channel?" 

"Twelve. Or was it nine? I tried to tell him-" 

Nine was the local emergency frequency. Peter turned to twelve. "Hello? I'm looking for Hawke and Caitlin?"

"Who wants them?" Suspicion laced Caitlin's voice, thick as traces of Texas and California. 

"Peter Maza. You saved my daughter this morning." He gripped the edge of the sedan door. "I don't know if you've heard any of the news today, but the local cops have their hands full. They're not going to be able to help you search." 

"Yeah." Blunt and quiet; had to be Hawke. "What about a medevac?"

__

Medevac? Did you find her? Why won't you say you found her- Peter could have smacked himself in the forehead. Tewanima hadn't said much, but what he hadn't said had been enough to paint a hazy picture of just what had gone down here. _Whoever's after her, they didn't just ambush her. They're still looking_. "Search and Rescue's busy. Can you hold out a few more hours?" 

"Maybe." 

Peter shook his head. He'd heard lots of _maybes_ in his years on the force. Maybe-yes, maybe-no, maybe-I-haven't-got-a-clue. 

This _maybe_ didn't give any clues. Smooth as glass; not a hint of lean one way or the other.

The ex-cop shrugged mentally. "If you can, we can get you some help. Unofficially."

"We'll think about it." _Click_.

Peter stared at the sun, willing it to fall.

~*~*~*~*~

__

...pilot hazard. Airwolf within easy sortie range. Unable to track enemy helicopters with own sensors from inside Lair. Basaltic shielding rock interferes with scan of radio frequencies and satellite access. Unable to locate satellite view of enemy helicopters. Potential security risk from unknown gargoyles returning to Lair upon sunset. Situation unacceptable-

"All right, all right, I hear ya," Dominic groused, tossing a wrench back into his toolbox. He kept his voice low; Le Van might be on the other side of Santini Air's hangar, but the thirteen-year-old was already showing signs of the family's keen ears. "Why don't you bother Mr. Clean with this?" 

__

Pilot Michael, Archangel ordered, "Enough already. I can't just drop a Committee meeting. Listen to Hawke."   
Pilot Stringfellow Hawke aircraft commander of record. _  
Pilots Hawke and Caitlin unwilling to withdraw pilot Dominic's presence from security of registered passenger Le Van Hawke. _

String and Cait didn't want to leave Le Van with strangers. Figured. After all these years, String still thought he was jinxed... and given the kinds of trouble that had landed on their doorsteps, Dom couldn't argue much. 

__

Sure be easier if this were a school day, Dominic thought. He'd raised teen-age kids before, a pair of 'em, but he'd been twenty years younger then. Trying to handle Le Van and Santini Air _and_ Airwolf was like juggling a bunch of hand grenades. 

Then again, even if it were a school day, String might have pulled Le Van out after last night's wake-up call. Archangel might say the mess in New York was over, but the day still didn't _feel _right.

__

And it ain't over, Dom thought, shaking his head at the news reports he'd heard so far on the radio. Panic in the streets was a fair assessment; people trying to come to grips with the fact that not everybody in New York City was human anymore. _Far as the rest of the States go, it's just started_. 

Might be easier if St. John were here to look after his son. Or not. Wasn't that Le hated the man who'd left his mother for the Company's call. The two just didn't seem to mesh - not like Le and String did. _You always had the bigger heart, kid,_ Dom thought. _Tough - oh yeah, tough as nails an' about as cuddly - but a heart wide as a hangar door_. 

And Sinj just didn't. Oh, he was a good man; kind, decent, the kind of person you'd want at your back in a firefight. Friendly, even; something nobody'd ever accused String of, or ever would. 

But Sinj had needed a blood test to be sure. String had looked his nephew up and down and said, _Come home_.

"You've got that look, Uncle Dom." Just starting to get his growth, Le Van still had to look up to meet Santini's gaze. 

"Look?" Dominic tried to play innocent. "What look?" 

The skeptical tilt of head was pure Hawke, belying slanted Amerasian eyes. "The 'It's classified' look." 

"Well, it is," Dominic admitted. That was one thing he agreed with String on, no matter what Sinj wanted. Le Van might not have 'need to know' on the details, but the kid deserved to know why they kept weirder hours than a Navy port's bargirls. "I'm gonna have to leave you at Knightsbridge for a while." 

That stubbornness was Hawke, too. "I could stay here. Or I could come _with_ you-"

"Your dad would kill me." Dom put a friendly hand on his shoulder. "Le. You know what we agreed about guns and helicopters." 

"I don't shoot unless family's there and it's a target range, I don't fly unless family's there to copilot." Le sighed, scuffing concrete with his sneaker. "It's not fair." 

"Fair?" Dominic raised dark brows. _Mama mia_; and he thought he'd left _this_ behind once String hit eighteen. _Shoulda known better._ "Since when is _fair _supposed to be part of the deal, kid? You get old enough for a license, you get to fly on your own. That's the law - and don't you start," he said hastily, seeing that argument coming. "When we carry we do it legal." Michael might pull a few strings to make it legal, but they didn't need to get into that kind of detail. 

Another sigh. "Am I ever going to get to see her again?" Le Van asked plaintively. 

__

Santa Maria, another can of worms. The kid was a Hawke, after all; one look at Airwolf, and he was just as mad to fly her as String had ever been. "I have to ask." _And we have to get it straight that you don't just grab anybody under a helmet, _he shot at the impatient A.I. _Kid doesn't know what he'd be getting into_.

__

Registered passenger Le Van Hawke not yet qualified as pilot, Airwolf evaded. 

Dominic rolled his eyes. _Don't pull that with me, missy. You know and I know all you need's somebody in the seat with the right senses and the right link. And there is no way I'm gonna trust a thirteen-year-old with Hellfires_.

An electronic sigh. _Rendezvous in progress?_

__

Yeah, I'm coming. "Help me lock up," Dominic told his young ward, putting tools back into order. "With any luck, we'll all be back in time to try and get your Uncle String to eat a burger." 

"You mean feed it to Tet," Le Van shook his head, pure Santini in the roll of exasperated eyes. "Give it up, Uncle Dom. He'll kiss Aunt Cait first." 

Dominic grinned, dark brows waggling. "I sure hope so." 

Le stared at him, obviously imagining his quiet, sardonic uncle sweeping his 'aunt' into a tight embrace. "Yuck!" 

~*~*~*~*~

"Have you found them?" 

Sunset painted the desert in glowing gold, flashed orange across Aluino's frown as he fiddled with the lead helicopter's communications equipment. "They are not transmitting now. But..." He scratched coordinates on paper, leaned them next to the map. "They are not far." 

"Not far," Paolo sneered. His hand itched to strike; Carlos would have struck. "Do better than that!" 

The fear in Aluino's eyes was sweet as honey. _"Sí, jefe," _he said hastily, bending back over the radio. 

Miguel's hands trembled as he reloaded his pistol. "The demon will be waking soon." 

"Then we deal with the demon," Paolo growled. That was why he had come with armed helicopters, instead of jeeps and dogs. Dogs were more pleasant to hunt... but they might flee the uncanny creature Isabel kept company with. 

Machine guns, fed with armor-piercing rounds - never. 

"You say it bled." One finger caressed the smooth coolness of a gun barrel. "If it bleeds, it can die." 

~*~*~*~*~

__

No. Zorra let spent brass fall from trembling talons, listened to the echoing silence from inside Isabel's trailer. _No_.

The signs had been trampled, but enough remained to tell a tale. A battle had been fought here. Death stained the earth. And Isabel... was gone. 

__

Not dead! You would know if she were dead. You would know!

__

First things first, Zorra ordered her trembling heart._ Find Isabel_.

But with no trail.... 

__

Callista, she thought, launching from the hilltop. Winds were thin and cold, but Sonora's were little worse. 

With the right spell, the mage could track an owl on a moonless night. If anyone could find Isabel, she could.

If her clan-sibs hadn't been delayed. If they'd survived the day, hiding among humans who did not know their nature. If, if, if....

And she was in sight of the rendezvous point, and a blur of pink and silver took her breath away. _They're alive_.

__

"¡Hermanos!" Zorra swooped down to the wing-crowded stone spire, traded a hasty embrace with Tizne. "Thank the Morning Star you've come. _Mi amor_, she is missing, and I have found traces of armed foes-" 

"No time." Callista's silvery draconic snout looked grimmer than usual. A spark of blue light crackled between two talons; broke free from the gargoyle mage's grasp to soar into the desert night. "_La loba aérea_ bides, but not for long. The falcons hide; the osprey flies. Darkness is near." 

"Do you ever know what she's talking about?" Mariposa demanded as they took to the skies.

Zorra shrugged. "Does anyone?" 

~*~*~*~*~

"This way, lad?" Hudson kept one hand on his sword, following in Bronx' wake. So far the beast had nigh led them all over three scorpions, an annoyed snake, and a landslide, but the trail seemed true. 

"Rrowf!" 

"There's got to be a better way to do this," Beth lamented, flashlight swinging in her hand. 

"I can't track them with this equipment," Lex admitted, putting away his laptop, tail tapping the dust as they followed Bronx. "Even with the right frequency. We just don't have the range. Ow!" 

"Look out for the cactus," Brooklyn snickered. 

"Very funny."

"And they will not tell you where they are," Goliath stated, keeping watch on the night. 

"Can't blame them," Peter sighed. "I could put Beth on the air, and they still wouldn't know she wasn't talking under duress. If I could just get Tewanima on the line, they could check his credentials." 

"But the lieutenant's _busy_ right now," Beth said dryly. "So - did you guys find anything in the Valley of the Gods?" 

"Not gargoyles...." Broadway was still rubbing his head, dazed by the swift update the Mazas had called in at sunset. "In New York?" 

"Apparently," Diane agreed. She'd traded in her usual dress for slacks, taking into consideration the rough terrain they were crossing. She skewed a glance Goliath's way. "When your ex messes up a spell, she does it in spades."

Goliath scowled. "And we still cannot speak with Elisa." 

"If you think Tewanima's busy, Elisa's probably too overworked to think," Peter shrugged. "She'll call when she can. Right now we've got three people out there trying not to get killed. If we could just _find_ them-" 

"Look!" Lex jabbed a finger toward the sky. 

Darkness between them and the stars. Familiar shapes, that swooped and swirled to catch the fastest currents of wind. 

And at least two of those shapes had curves. 

"You three, aloft," Goliath declared. "We must speak with them. Hudson-" 

"Aye, lad. Cling to yer radios. We're near." Hudson scratched under Bronx' chin. 

Tongue lolling, the gargoyle beast grinned.

~*~*~*~*~

A burst of static, and a pencil flew into the air. "Yes!" 

__

Finally! Stalking over to the console, Paolo slammed a hand down on the map. "What have you found?" 

Aluino barely noticed the threat, drawing lines to intersect not two miles away. "A set of transmissions that are not the police, both in the air and on the ground. Heading into the area where we located Apoyo," he exulted. "I have them!"

"No." Paolo studied inked contours grimly. "_I_ have them." 

With a gesture, helicopters tore into the night. 

~*~*~*~*~

"Hawke?" Caitlin's voice held a wary edge. "You ever see a bracelet do that before?" 

Turquoise glowed, blue light shining through black nylon. String bit off a curse, digging in his pack for duct tape to stifle the betraying gleam- 

"Callista," came the soft whisper, coppery fingers tracing the glowing stone. "Zorra?" 

"Easy," Caitlin cautioned her, holding Isabel back when the agent tried to rise. One-handed, she offered a canteen of sugar-laced water. "She's not here."

String tapped the turquoise. Light or no light, it was still cool and slick as ordinary stone. And yet... he felt the indefinable prickle of watching eyes. "Tracer?" 

One slow sip. Another. "Callista... knows I wear it," Isabel acknowledged. Hazel eyes blinked at them. "You?" Thought started to chase out the fog of pain. "Not that I'm not grateful. But why?" 

"Long story." He worked a finger under wrought silver, feeling the mount that held the glowing stone. There'd been just the slightest sense of a crack, there... _Bingo_. His gaze cut across to Caitlin, a silent request to hold the other woman's attention. 

"Short version, we came to ask you and Zorra a few questions, found some goons at your place, and figured we'd better catch up with you before they did," Caitlin summed up. Her attention never wavered as he twisted silver aside, extracting a small, dark microdot. "Nice landslide." 

"Thanks." A shaking hand started to lay the canteen aside; String caught it before it could spill. "No offense," Isabel drew in a breath, gesturing toward their sidearms, "But I'd feel a lot better if those were something bigger-" 

String covered her mouth, held a finger to his lips. Tilted his head toward the soft thud of footsteps. 

Apoyo frowned at him, bewildered. 

__

Right. She can't hear them. But Caitlin could. His copilot had her gun up and ready, breathing light as she sought her target. 

"Hrruff?" 

"What in the name of Sam Houston kind of dog is _that?_" Caitlin whispered. 

__

Big and blue, String thought, steadying his own aim as the creature clambered in and out of view in the rocks. Which, together with the white-glowing eyes, meant it wasn't a dog at all. _Wait for it. Wait_.

"Hawke? Caitlin?" 

"Beth?" Apoyo breathed. "That's Beth Maza. When did you... oh. The ride." She winced. "Oh, that must have been a mess." 

Miss Maza? String traded a raised brow with Caitlin. Now they could hear other footsteps; three sets the less-than-steady gait of flashlight-using humans, a fourth heavier, more sure. _Unofficial help, hmm?_

"Hello, the camp," an older voice called. "It'd be well if ye weren't after shooting us, lad." 

__

That didn't sound like a Mexican drug runner. "Cover me," he mouthed.

__

Sword, was the first thing through his mind as he saw the figure hiding in the shadows at the back of the tense group. _Bigger than Zorra. Older? Blind on the left. _Critical to know, facing a swordsman. He'd found that out the hard way tackling Archangel. 

Flicking his gaze over the others, String noted the match of feature and feature; Beth with her Hopi father, Beth with her African-American mother. _If they're not related, they're doing a damn good job pretending._ He lowered his pistol. 

Peter Maza let a breath sigh out. "Rough day?" the gray-haired man asked dryly. 

"Had worse." _All clear_, he signaled. "Who're your friends?" 

"Friends?" Beth said guilelessly. "We came alone-" 

"Hell you did." He nodded toward the shadows. "Haven't shot a gargoyle yet. Rather not start." Not until he knew why they'd been in the Lair, at least.

"Would you just _stop_ with the shooting?" Beth burst out, arms hugging herself. "You didn't have to shoot them!" 

String snorted.

Hand on her daughter's shoulder, Beth's mother glared at him. "Mr. Hawke-"

String whipped up a hand for silence. Something at the edge of hearing....

Turbines. Coming fast. "Under cover! Now!" 

"What?"

"The man said _move,_ lass!" A taloned hand snatched her up, bounding toward their sheltered overhang. "Goliath! We're in need of ye!"

__

Radios. It was a rush of sheer, incredulous disbelief. "You've been transmitting _all this time?_" God, civilians were going to get him killed....

Twice killed. The rocks might have been enough to hide three IR signatures. There was no way they'd hide eight.

~*~*~*~*~

"...And IOU four Redeyes," Dominic muttered, leaving the note on a computer console where his niece Jo would find it first. If they had choppers to handle, he wanted the short-range air-to-air. He switched off the desk lamp; starlight filtering in from overhead was more than enough to guide him back to Airwolf. "Man, you kids sure cluttered up the place."

Well - them and Archangel. But the Company never would've believed he and String ran the Lady from almost bare rock. _Well, how do you think we hid her so long, Locke?_ the elderly mechanic thought practically. _Phone line means somebody to _use_ a phone - and the whole point of bein' out here was to make it look like nobody was here._

Besides, the Lady's computers put this hunk of junk hardware to shame.

__

Status: Mission ready. Engine ignition in 5. 4. 3-

"Now, you hold it right there, missy," Dominic scolded the quivering helicopter. Walking over at his own pace; never let a kid get the idea they could rush you. "You need a hell of a lot more practice before you're ready to take off out of here on your own. Autopilot's one thing, but letting you pick the course...." 

Controlled fear hit him; the tight calm of knowing he was hunted. He could feel the safeties thumbed loose as the two he knew best in this world watched and waited for their enemies. They weren't looking for a fight, but the fight was coming to them-

__

Falcon screams, shrill on the wind- 

And Dominic was in the copilot's seat, helmet on, turbines howling to life overhead. "You fight dirty." 

__

Techniques observed from pilots, came Airwolf's blithe reply.

"Archangel." It figured, Dominic thought, hovering them up the tall stone chimney. White-suited wonder could corrupt even a good helicopter. 

__

Most effective long-term techniques, "telling the truth", observed from pilot Dominic, Airwolf corrected. _Observational evidence indicates pilot Archangel adapted many of such expressly for dealing with pilots Hawke and Caitlin_. _Further observation implies such techniques now part of pilot Archangel's overall behavior_.

"What?" Him, rubbing off on Michael? "Why, I oughta-" 

Turbos lit, punching them through the wind. 

~*~*~*~*~

"So," the one called Brooklyn tried to cross his arms nonchalantly as they flew toward the roar of helicopters. _"¿Cuál es su signo?"_

Zorra stifled the urge to knock the grinning fool out of the sky. Even on their way into danger - even after they'd spent precious minutes to land and tell these strangers of Isabel's danger - he and his rookery brothers had determinedly flirted with every female in the group. _As well Seferina is not here_. Tizne would not have taken kindly to such attentions directed toward his chosen mate. 

Mariposa did not mind it, much. El Timoteo's clan had more females than males, one reason Urraca had not frowned on Isabel more than she had, and Mariposa had not found one quite to her liking yet. 

But if Lexington kept up his pestering of Callista, he was likely to discover how it felt to be on the wrong end of a lightning bolt.

__

"¿Eres acuario?" Brooklyn persisted.

"Never speak Spanish to me again," Zorra bit out. "Your accent is horrible." 

A rush of wind; Goliath, dropping into earshot. "Brooklyn. Enough." A purple brow ridge lifted at her. "It is often difficult, having humans as part of the clan. They are... fragile." 

Zorra _hmph_ed. "Isabel is not fragile." Injured, yes; in deadly danger, most assuredly- 

Gunfire ripped the night. 

__

They're on the ground!

Shrieking, she dove. 

~*~*~*~*~

String slammed in another clip, snapping shots at the men advancing toward their rocky cover. He'd hit enough to know they were wearing vests; so much for shooting to wound. _Uzi. I need an Uzi_. 

Caitlin let off another triplet of rounds, starring the glass of the lead Huey's windshield. It ducked away, but not before he caught a glimpse of the leader's narrowed eyes. _Oh, hell_. 

Rotors rose, well out of handgun range. Familiar black silhouettes leaned out the helicopter's side doors. Machine guns.

__

Guess we made him mad. "Everyone, down!" It might buy them a few seconds, before ricochets pouring in made Swiss cheese of them all-

Something shrieked out of the sky; a dart of fox-red, striking one of the gunmen with an audible _crack_ of breaking bones. 

"Zorra," Isabel breathed. "Oh, Mother Mary, be careful!" 

__

Careful didn't seem to be on the gargoyle's agenda; she tore and threw with the abandon of a cornered puma, howling as she came. Some of Argentino's men fell back from the terror in their midst, but others had higher ground, and guns were lowering-

And then Caitlin was breaking a man's arm, as some of Argentino's other thugs rushed them under the cover of the guns, and there was no more time to think. 

__

Lady! 

~*~*~*~*~

"Coming through!" Brooklyn shouted, punching a hole in the trailing helicopter's gas tank. Most of his clan was weighing this helicopter down, while Zorra's tackled the lead; Goliath raked talons down the painted side, tearing off one machine gun before bullets from inside forced them both to duck away. "Man, these guys have no manners." 

A banshee shriek through the night; gale-force winds tore them off the hull, sent helicopters and gargoyles tumbling madly through the air. 

__

Which way's up which way's up which way- oh hell. 

Ground. Hard ground. Very hard. 

Heavy wingbeats; Goliath touched down, breathing hard, Lex's limp form cradled in his arms. "Such winds must be born of sorcery!" 

"Sorcery, hell!" Brooklyn gasped, staggering back to unsteady feet. "What. The hell. Was _that?_"

__

That was swooping to the ground just in front of a pile of rocks, bullets _spang_ing off a black-and-white hull in cascades of sparks. It howled as it hovered, like wind singing through high wires, like a wolf of glass and steel. 

"Ohhh...." Stirring in the clan leader's grip, Lex squinted toward the fight. "Oh, wow!"

Blinking dirt out of his eyes, Broadway groaned. "We're never going to pry him away from that one." 

~*~*~*~*~

A hiss of pressurized air; a black door swung wide. "Somebody call triple-A?"

Caitlin laughed, scrambling past into the engineer's seat. "Dom, I could kiss you!" 

Dominic grinned under the black visor. "Anytime, Red!" 

String _thwack_ed his latest opponent into unyielding stone. "Can you handle this?" 

"Aye, lad!" Hudson sliced through another gun, tossing the man behind it into his fellows. Behind him Bronx guarded unarmed humans, snarling enough to deter all but the most foolhardy Mexican. "Get yon metal beasts awa', an' we'll have some fun!" 

"Woulda opened up with the guns, only I didn't know for sure who you was shootin' at," Dominic explained as String pulled on a helmet. "Some mess, huh?" 

"Yeah." His finger found the trigger, switched to single-shot, and let loose. 

Soundproofing muffled any screams. But nothing could hide the sudden exodus of Argentino's men from Hudson's vicinity.

__

So much for bulletproof vests.

He yanked Airwolf up, looping over unsteady helicopters before they could right themselves. "We don't want to bring them down here," Caitlin said in a rush. "Too many people." 

String grinned, starlight amplification letting him see the frantic gestures as Argentino's pilots took in just _what_ had blazed past them. "So let's play chase." 

~*~*~*~*~

"Isabel!" 

"Zorra!" Isabel coughed, drew in knife-edged air. "Over here!" 

"Is it over?" Beth poked her head out from behind Bronx, eyeing the gun in her father's hand askance. 

"Looks like it," Peter said softly, slipping the safety back onto the weapon Hawke had handed him. Battered and beaten men huddled in the small clearing; some sprawled limply among the rocks. Most of those still conscious had sense enough to drop their weapons, facing ten white- and red-glowing glares. Especially after two or three had seen those weapons bent into crude horseshoes.

"My god." Diane let the chunk of wood she'd wielded drop to the ground. "What was that?" 

"Good Samaritans." Isabel let a crooked grin slip onto her face as the woman she loved bounded towards her, wings outspread. "I think... I owe them three times, now...."

And wings were warm around her, and a foxy muzzle nuzzled her neck, burying a cool nose in dark hair. Sweet Spanish nothings drifted up to her ears; something hot and wet splashed onto her upturned cheek. 

"A pity there will be no fourth." 

Chill iced her spine; Isabel knew that voice. As she knew the subtle, metallic _click_ of a ready trigger. 

"Whore of demons," the corrupt patrol officer snarled. His eyes were wide and wild, darting from one fanged form to the next. But his aim never wavered. "Why could you not just _die?_" 

Rage burned like hot coals in her chest. Fury that burned higher, as she felt Zorra shift to block the bullet with her own body. _Never._ "Get away from us, and I might let you live." 

Miguel took in her shaky, left-handed grip on her gun. "I do not _think_ so." 

__

Crack. 

With a look of surprise, the ex-officer touched the spreading stain on his chest. Faltered. 

Isabel lowered her holdout gun as he fell. "I do." 

~*~*~*~*~

__

So, Argentino thought, fleeing into the night. The helicopter behind him was calling frantically for aid; leaking fuel like blood, it would never reach the border. But it should serve to distract the black spectre on their tail. _Miguel was telling the truth about phantom helicopters, after all. _And now Apoyo's unlikely ally had returned.

But he had prepared for that as well. Starlight glinted on a long, lean shape of fire and death.

"_Adiós, señor_," Paolo whispered, pulling the trigger. 

The charge fired, sending the missile straight and true. 

~*~*~*~*~

__

Up! Pilot's reflex yanked Airwolf skyward, fractions of a second before fingers could have moved the collective. The rocket missed them by feet, sailing out into the night. 

"Heat-seeker!" Caitlin called out as it turned, arcing back towards them. "IR counter's up, but-" 

"Redeye!" String felt the thump as Caitlin deployed the ADF pod. _I've had enough for one day_.

Two balls of fire shattered the night. 

~*~*~*~*~

Goliath's eyes narrowed, watching the last damaged helicopter flutter to the desert floor nearby, shadowed by a black, vengeful form. "He has forced them down." 

"The downwash on that helicopter is just - cool!" Lex enthused. "I wonder what kind of engines it's got. Did you see that fire as it went by? Maybe it's got some kind of turbo boost. I've got to talk to them." 

"Oh great," Brooklyn rubbed a sore beak. "Lex, you nearly killed us the last time you got in a helicopter. You want to try again with that thing?" 

"I would not," Zorra stated, holding Isabel close. Taloned fingers ran over jacketed arms, as if the gargoyle needed to reassure herself the woman was solid. "I do not think crashing with missiles aboard would be wise." 

"Missiles?" Lex whistled. "Well... maybe I'll just ask them how it works...."

A faint chatter of gunfire reached them. 

Hudson finished cleaning his blade, watched flames rise from the wreck as the pilot and crew scattered. "Seems these lads'll be walking home. If ye didna get through to your tribal police." 

"Oh, they're coming," Peter assured them, clicking off the radio. "Now that the shooting's over," he grumbled. 

The radio buzzed on again. "Maza. Anyone down there need a hospital?" 

Beth clung to Diane, eyes closed. Her mother was made of sterner stuff, but even Diane could not look on the battlefield without horror. "I want to go home," Beth said tightly. "Please." 

"Apoyo?" Hawke asked. 

Isabel clung as fiercely to her mate. "I have a ride." 

"Better tell her relatives to get moving, then." Hudson could all but hear the shrug in Hawke's voice as the black helicopter dipped threateningly toward a few men who'd moved too close to their guns. "We'll keep these guys corralled until the feds get here." 

"That will not be necessary." Callista held a ball of glowing blue in silvery talons, raising it above terrified gunmen. "_Dormiatus!_"

Azure light shattered over the hollow. As one, bodies slumped to cold stone. 

The draconic gargess drew a deep breath, weariness shadowing peacock-blue eyes. "Now, we may go." 

~*~*~*~*~

There was a white sedan parked in their driveway. 

Peter shook his head as gargoyles swooped down from the sky, missing half a step as Goliath set him onto the ground. "Now what?" 

"Just wrapping up a few details, Mr. Maza." An elegant African-American woman stepped out of the shadows, white suit gleaming in the starlight. "Ms. Apoyo?" 

"Marella," Isabel said warily. "Why did you... oh." She glanced out at the night. "Where are they?" 

A dark brow lifted almost to curled hair. "Where are who?" 

"That way, is it?" Zorra said softly. 

"It has to be," Marella replied honestly. A wide grin spread over her face, turned it warm and open. "Besides, I hear someone has a date with a hamburger." 

Beth shuddered, repulsed. "How could they eat after that?" 

"Beth," Diane murmured.

The grin faded. Marella gestured toward the door. "Could we take this inside?" 

Peter traded a glance with Goliath. "Is everyone going to fit?" He had no idea what strange gargoyles did when they met. Just because they'd fought together tonight, didn't mean they'd be willing to practically stand on top of each other now. 

"We will manage," the clan leader allowed, glancing at ebon-hued Tizne. "Will we not?" 

The dark gargoyle gave him an odd look. "Zorra, she is the one who knows the ground here." He glanced at his clan sister. Who shrugged, one wing still protectively around her human. 

__

Aha, Peter thought; but there was no triumph in it. Now he could see what Elisa couldn't quite put into words. The one thing that, more than species differences, would keep his daughter from going after what she wanted. 

__

You don't ask, do you, Goliath? Just charge in, assuming you're right - until someone hits you with the fact that you're not.

A detective could get really tired of correcting assumptions. 

"It will do," Callista said warmly, silvery tail tapping bits of gravel. "I wish to hear more of _la loba aérea_." 

"You call it that, too?" Lex bounced toward the door, ignoring how Marella's gaze turned more and more annoyed. "What's it doing up there in the Valley of the Gods? Were those really turbojets on it? I didn't think any helicopter could go that fast-"

"We should have rented a bigger trailer," Diane breathed, leading the way. 

"All right," Peter stated, once introductions had been made and wings and tails were more or less untangled. This was still his house, and he wanted the truth. "I take it those people aren't showing up in court."

Marella pulled out a sheaf of papers. "This is a list of how many security violations your friends have caused," she said dryly, tapping polished fingernails against her briefcase. "Fortunately, they don't seem to have gotten too deep." She raked the winged assemblage with a glance. "Gargoyle or not, the U.S. government doesn't take kindly to having its computers hacked."

"You did not answer." Goliath loomed over her. "Why have you placed such a danger on their land?"

__

So that's what you found last night, Peter realized. _Oh, damn_. 

Peter Maza was a cop, with a cop's stubborn faith in the rule of law. But he was also Hopi, like it or not. He knew in his bones what the government might do to keep what it wanted. 

A helicopter like that had to be military hardware. One trailer full of gargoyles would be a small price to keep that secret. 

Marella didn't so much as flinch. "Last time I checked, the Valley of the Gods was in Utah. Well outside of the Navajo Reservation, much less the Hopi. And anyone you might have seen tonight was acting under federal jurisdiction."

"_Might_ have seen?" Beth objected. "Listen, lady-" 

"Just to bring you up to speed, Miss Maza," Marella rode right over her words, "That means we decide who shows up in a courtroom, and who doesn't." Dark eyes held nothing but cool calculation. "Unless you want to be an accessory to violating the security of the United States." 

"People deserve to know the truth," Beth challenged. 

"The truth?" Peter hadn't thought Marella's voice could get any colder. "The truth is, good friends of mine risked their lives to save you." 

"And we are grateful," Goliath allowed. But there was no give in his gaze. "Yet we will not be swayed by threats." 

"My agency never makes threats, Goliath." Marella laid a tape recorder out in full view. "The events in New York will force various governments to admit what no one's wanted to say for centuries; gargoyles do exist, and some of them pose a threat to human lives. So far H.E.A.T.'s kept New York relatively calm - when they aren't leaving mousetraps for reporters so they can get some peace and quiet," she added wryly. "But if you want to keep Congress from passing secret measures to eliminate every last one of your kind as threats to national security, you'll tell me all you know about Demona. Now." 

~*~*~*~*~

"It's quite dead, you know. It can't possibly bite you." Somehow, Archangel could make even eating a hamburger look perfectly in keeping with the highest tone of society. 

String eyed the offending chunk of browned beef Dominic was proposing to slide onto his plate. Candles lit the cabin at Eagle Lake; more than enough light to see grease glisten over the meat. "No thanks."

"Told you," Le Van pointed out, snaring a cheese roll from the center of the cabin table. Nearby a blue-tick coonhound whined, seeing his opportunity. 

"That you did, Half-Pint," Dominic shrugged, dropping the burger to the hungry hound. "Here you go, Tet. Can't blame a man for trying...." 

"So Marella's handling it?" Caitlin asked, sampling her way through three kinds of salad greens.

"Either that, or there will be quite a lot of rubble in the morning." Michael studied the cherry tomato on his fork, shook his head. 

"Michael." String kept his voice level. Classified was classified, after all. 

"Yes, well; let's hope for the best." Archangel leaned back in his chair, a half-smile creeping onto his face. "After all, Sheriff Quinn could use the night-time support." 

"What?" 

~*~*~*~*~

"You wish part of my clan to go _where?_" Coffee mug dangling forgotten from her hands, Zorra stared at Marella. 

"Cold Creek, California," the agent repeated briskly, spreading out the map of the Angeles National Forest. "It's a nice little town, right up against the San Gabriel mountains. Probably not that different from wherever your clan lives. Well - maybe a little cooler." A true smile settled on her face. "We know the police department up there. Believe me, they'd be glad to see you." 

~*~*~*~*~

"I've been encouraging agents to retire to the Van Nuys area ever since you snatched Airwolf from Libya," Archangel said plainly, fitting his plate into the sink. "Cold Creek in particular."

"So you could snatch her?" Dominic frowned, running in hot water. 

"So I could protect her," Michael corrected, settling into a chair. "And them. You're not the only ones who have old enemies turn up on the doorstep." He raised a graying brow. "Much as I might wish otherwise, my resources aren't unlimited. If I have to maintain a bomb squad, search and rescue, and all the related personnel, it's far more cost-effective to have them all in one place." A subtle, sly smile; familiar to anyone who'd survived getting on the wrong side of Archangel. "Besides; the more of our people are here, the less chance anyone else can insert an agent into the area." 

String offered a glass of the '96. "And now you want a clan of gargoyles." 

"Why not?" Michael sipped his champagne. "For some missions they make excellent agents." He watched bubbles rise through golden liquid. "And if we want the general public to get used to the idea of dealing with gargoyles... Cold Creek's already used to strange noises in the middle of the night." 

~*~*~*~*~

"So what do you think?" Isabel asked, once Marella had driven into the darkness. She fingered a white card, looking at the phone number they'd been given as a contact. 

Zorra blew out a breath, watched it puff white into chill air as they leaned against the wall of the trailer. Inside, Callista was weaving rings of cryptic speech around a wary Goliath, while Mariposa and Tizne got to know the Trio. "I think... I trust the quality of her friends." 

Isabel nodded. "California's got better laws than Arizona, as far as same-sex partnerships go. If we could use Marella's help to get your clan-sibs into the country legally-"

"It would be well," Zorra agreed. "I would wish not to strain your oaths, _mi amor_. Even in so small a thing as this." 

"And as far as talking to the clan in New York... it's about as long a trip by plane." Isabel nestled under her wing. "I wonder what they do when they're not rescuing stray DEA agents." 

Zorra rapped a talon against the card. "Perhaps we should see this Cold Creek, and find out." 

"You think they're there?" 

Zorra lifted a brow ridge. "Don't you?"

~*~*~*~*~

"What the heck?" 

Jason Locke brandished the slip of paper that had been stuck to his computer monitor, snatching the glassine envelope taped beside it. "'Here's your microdot'?" the dark CIA agent read off, glancing around his crew. "'If I find classified missile locations left out in the clear again, I'm shipping you all to Alaska. Rivers, don't leave your password taped under the keyboard'?" 

"Oops," Major Mike Rivers muttered. The blond tried to hide behind St. John Hawke; not easy, given that Sinj was currently pacing up and down the Lair, checking the extent of strange tracks even before he checked their Lady.

"Archangel?" Jo Santini asked warily. Dominic's niece tossed back blonde hair, casually scooped up a scrap of paper covered in her uncle's handwriting. 

"Archangel!" Locke growled, throwing the crumpled note to the ground. "And what's this about not downdrafting the neighbors? 'Only noisy at night?'" 

Jo let the agent rant and rave, moving around their Airwolf to meet up with St. John. Jason was usually suave and debonair, but he'd never quite gotten past the fact that Archangel had pulled a fast one on the Company to get St. John out of Burma. _Though he still doesn't know how fast a one it was_, Jo thought, patting black carbide. 

Jason thought he had the original Airwolf. The Committee thought he had the only Airwolf.

Sinj and Jo knew better. 

"Uncle Dom left us an IOU," she murmured, just loud enough for Sinj to hear. "Some fuel, some thirty-millimeter, and four Redeyes." 

Sinj said nothing for a long moment. "They said they were retired." 

__

And you believed that? Jo thought. Then again, maybe he had. Or wanted to. For over fourteen years St. John had believed Stringfellow was living a safe, ordinary life, never suspecting that the Company had had him declared MIA after his last Firm mission went sour. Finding out his little brother and adoptive uncle had taken up with Archangel had seriously shaken him. "So ask them about it."

"Ask them?" Sinj shook his head. "Dom's _seventy_, Jo!" 

Closing on seventy-one. As if that made a difference? "With eyesight and hearing good enough to wring out a fighter jet, according to his checkups. Santinis get to their hundreds if they're careful," she reminded him. "He doesn't do the trickier stunts anymore, Sinj. You know that." 

"Flying engineer on Airwolf's not a stunt, and you know it!" Something dark and angry glinted in his gaze, overwhelming his usual friendly smile. "I trusted them with Le Van-" 

"And if they have to take off, for work or whatever, they always make sure he's got a guardian angel," Jo said flatly. _So that's part of it_. Sinj hadn't even known he was a father when he'd rejoined the Company. Meeting the teenager his brother had taken in had been... awkward. "He's your son, Sinj. Archangel won't let someone use him as a bargaining chip." 

"You mean, he won't let someone _else_ use _String's nephew_ as a bargaining chip." St. John gave her a dark look. "How much _whatever_, Jo?" 

Jo stood her ground. "Ask them. He's your brother, Sinj. Talk to the man." 

Sinj looked away. "And if Archangel doesn't want him to? I might as well be talking to a rock." 

And that hurt, Jo knew; that in some ways, String trusted Archangel more than his own flesh and blood. _They've been working together since you went missing, Sinj. String's saved Michael's life, more times than either of them will ever admit. And Michael gave him a _reason_ to live, when he thought everyone he loved was doomed to die_. 

Archangel had used him. Admittedly. Used his skill, his anger, his grief. Flung him out like a living blade, to bring down his enemies. 

But every mission String had flown had kept him alive a little longer. Kept him hoping a little longer, until a helicopter and a redheaded pilot and a nephew out of nowhere could pry their way into his barricaded heart. 

And none of that was what St. John wanted to hear.

"Then try talking to Michael," Jo persisted. "He's a good man, Sinj. String wouldn't be with the Firm if he wasn't." 

"String shouldn't be with the Firm at all." Blue eyes, so much like String's, drilled through her. "He came back to the Firm to find me, Jo. Why is he still working for them?" 

__

You've flown Airwolf - even just our Airwolf - and you can ask that? Their helicopter was a pilot's dream; deadly as a viper, sweet to the hand, agile as a dragonfly. Enough to keep Jo with the Company for all its flaws, just for the gift of flying her.

But she'd seen String and Cait guide their Lady through her paces over Eagle Lake, and it'd pierced her pilot's soul to the heart. _Like a dark-winged angel, dancing on moonlight._ "St. John-" 

"I do not _believe_ this!" Rounding black carbide, Jason brandished images of rocky forms. "How did that mess in New York get out _here?_" 

"New York?" Mike snatched a photo. "You mean, those stories we picked up on the way back from China, about winged monsters...."

"Gargoyles," Jo corrected. "Timmonds' report said they were called gargoyles." She studied backgrounds of familiar red sandstone. "We've got gargoyles in the Valley?" 

"They apparently broke into the Lair," Jason said sourly. "We're going to have to put in a whole new security system." The blue-suited spy wandered over to the stone chimney, muttering calculations under his breath. 

Jo whistled, eyeing craggy shapes of fang and wing. "Sinj, I can't make you talk to your brother," she said frankly. "But when we get home, I am definitely asking Uncle Dom about this!"

~*~*~*~*~

Translations from Spanish: 

__

Mi amor. My love.

"_Hagáse el muerto_." - Play dead; make like a dead person. 

__

"¿Dónde es Isabel?" - Where is Isabel?

__

La loba aérea. - the wolf of the air; Airwolf.

__

"¡Hermanos!" - Siblings, at least one of whom is male.

__

"¿Cuál es su signo?" - What's your sign?

__

"¿Eres acuario?" - Are you an Aquarius?

From Latin: 

"_Dormiatus!_" - Sleep.

~*~*~*~*~


End file.
